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Credit: L. Patron/UN University (UNU)

By Victor Bernard and Delia Paul
BANGKOK / MELBOURNE, Dec 16 2021 (IPS)

Amid several disappointments of the 2021 UN climate conference in Glasgow, one sign of hope was the agreement on financing for adaptation to climate change. Developed countries agreed to double adaptation finance for poorer nations by 2025, from 2019 levels.

This rapid increase—if promises are kept—could mean many different things: infrastructure upgrades in vulnerable coastal zones, tree planting to counter rising temperatures, technology and training for underfunded civil servants, and more.

Adaptation finance has been low in comparison to financing for mitigation efforts, so this outcome from Glasgow is welcome. But if this is to benefit those most in need and protect them from violations, countries and international aid donors must adopt a human rights-based approach to adaptation.

Such an approach is not only about civil and political rights (such as voting rights or freedom of assembly), but also about social, economic and cultural rights to nutritious food, water and sanitation, education, and access to health care, to name just a few that are internationally recognized.

Now, the impacts of climate change gravely threaten governments’ ability to fulfil their commitments.

Countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including Southeast Asia and small island states, are among the world’s most vulnerable to climate impacts. Their coastal cities, long coastlines, and many small islands are features that expose large populations to both fast and slow-onset changes in the global environment.

The low-lying archipelago, Tuvalu, in the Pacific Ocean is reclaiming land as it fights the effects of climate change. Credit: UNDP Tuvalu

Communities forced to relocate due to climate-induced changes, such as sea-level rise, may have a poorer standard of living in their new place. Women in water-scarce regions may spend longer hours than before looking for freshwater sources.

Disasters and extreme weather events are already preventing children from having full access to education. During the pandemic lockdowns, for example, children without access to computers at home could not benefit from online learning.

The promise of financing for adaptation is a huge opportunity to make a difference for the world’s poorest, who are often the most exposed to climate risk. But governments so far have not adopted a systematic approach to integrating human rights in their adaptation planning.

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate was the first international environmental treaty to explicitly mention States’ human rights obligations. The Agreement also makes implicit references to rights-related issues such as gender equality, public participation, and access to information.

The recent Glasgow conference finalised the ‘Paris Rulebook’ operationalizing the 2015 Agreement, which features human rights language under its Article 6. The new commitment to double adaptation financing is an opportunity to bring these commitments into practice.

Ahead of the Glasgow climate conference, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and the Stockholm Environment Institute jointly investigated the extent to which countries have integrated human rights concerns in their National Adaptation Plans (NAPs).

NAPs are a country-led process under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They are an expression of a country’s intent and strategy for fulfilling their commitments on adaptation.

Our research reviewed 15 NAPs that were available in English, out of the 24 submitted before COP 26. Fiji’s plan explicitly adopted human rights language, while Brazil’s plan strongly articulated the rights to water and the rights of Indigenous peoples. But overall, human rights are generally absent in the NAPs that we reviewed, or are addressed in an unsystematic way.

Intentionally adopting a rights-based process for NAPs means two things.

First, it ensures that adaptation funds do indeed benefit the most vulnerable people and communities through efforts to alleviate the impacts of climate change.

Second, it sets the scene for a truly inclusive and accessible planning process, in which disadvantaged groups are able to have their voices heard and are included in decision making about the future we share.

States are sometimes hesitant to adopt a rights-based approach, viewing this exercise as politically too challenging. But implementing human rights need not be a ‘blame game.’ It is possible to institute adaptation processes that celebrate everyone’s inherent dignity and everyone’s equal and inalienable rights.

Such a process can be helped through the use of tools, guidance, and awareness-raising initiatives. RWI is currently working on guidance for integrating human rights concerns in the NAPs. This will also look beyond NAPs to provide guidance for program implementation, supporting the policy-to-practice process.

At the 2015 climate talks in Paris, countries promised that climate finance would not fall below $100 billion a year. This figure has so far not been met. In 2019 around $79.6 billion in climate finance went to developing countries, and just 25% was for adaptation.

Boosting adaptation finance should mean that the world’s poorest countries have additional resources to do what they urgently need.

Climate change threatens access to resources, and increases the gap between the haves and have-nots in society. NAPs are an opportunity to counter this threat by adopting effective, inclusive and equitable approaches to adaptation.

The promise of Glasgow could help protect human rights in our rapidly-warming world.

Victor Bernard is a Thai citizen and programme officer at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, based in Bangkok. Delia Paul is a Malaysian citizen and human geography researcher at Monash University in Melbourne.

 

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Aida Valdez stands outside her home in the Guaraní indigenous community of Yariguarenda, in northern Argentina, in front of the wood-burning oven she uses to cook - an example of energy poverty in vulnerable rural communities in Latin America. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Dec 15 2021 (IPS)

The effects of the covid-19 pandemic and high energy prices have had an impact on the consumption of polluting fuels in Latin America and the Caribbean, exacerbating energy poverty in the region.

In some countries there is evidence of an increase in the use of charcoal and firewood. But there have been few studies to reflect this, because it is a recent development and there has been a tardy focus on the behavior of vulnerable sectors in response to the new realities they face.

Macarena San Martín, a researcher at the non-governmental Energy Poverty Network (RedPE) in Chile, said the phenomenon goes beyond the notion of access to electric power, and includes aspects such as the quality and affordability of energy.

“In all Latin American countries, the problem is considered one-dimensional, but multiple factors must be considered,” she told IPS from Santiago. “Access has been seen as a question of: can you plug something in? If you can, it’s solved. While today they have access, that does not necessarily guarantee that energy poverty has been eliminated. There are also problems of efficiency.”

In central Chile, many people use kerosene, a hydrocarbon derivative, and natural gas for household use and heating.

Due to the pandemic, a Basic Services Law has been in force since May, by means of which vulnerable electricity and gas users may defer payments, without the risk of being cut off. But this benefit expires on Dec. 31, so the beneficiaries will have to start paying off what they owe next February, up to a maximum of 48 monthly installments.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) establishes that a household suffers from energy poverty when it lacks equitable access to adequate, reliable, non-polluting and safe energy services to cover its basic needs and sustain the human and economic development of its members, and spends more than 10 percent of its income on energy costs.

Although access to electricity averages more than 90 percent in the region, in rural areas and urban peripheries more than 10 percent of households lack electric power in some cases, such as in Bolivia, Honduras, Haiti and Nicaragua, according to September data from ECLAC.

This charcoal factory in the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico is an example of an ecological initiative that has not managed to curb the consumption of coal, despite rising prices, or the consumption of hydrocarbons. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Latin America and the Caribbean is the most unequal region in the world, according to international organizations, and this is reflected in the energy sector. While a minority can afford to install solar panels on their homes or drive an electric or hybrid gasoline-electric car, the majority depend on dirty energy or polluting transport.

When spending is highly unequal, as in this region, the resulting energy inequality tends to grow, concluded a 2020 report by three researchers from the School of Earth and Environment at the private University of Leeds in the UK.

Another report, entitled “Las luces son del pueblo (the lights belong to the people); Energy, access and energy poverty” and published in November by the non-governmental Observatorio Petrolero Sur, based in Argentina, puts the number of people lacking access to electricity in this region at almost 22 million, equivalent to 3.3 percent of the total population of 667 million people.

In addition, 12 percent of the region’s population use non-clean sources for energy services, as in Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua and Paraguay.

In the residential sector, the energy mix is based on kerosene, natural gas, firewood, electricity and liquefied gas.

The beauty of the snowy streets of Coyhaique, the capital of the southern Patagonian region of Aysén, belies the fact that it is the most polluted city in Chile, mainly due to the use of wet firewood to heat homes in an area where temperatures plunge in the wintertime. CREDIT: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

In Argentina, official figures indicate that more than one-fifth of the population lives in energy poverty, despite subsidized electric and gas rates.

In December 2019, shortly before the outbreak of the covid pandemic, the Social Solidarity and Productive Reactivation Law came into force in the Southern Cone country, which includes a revision of gas and electricity tariffs to avoid excessive increases, for the benefit of the economically vulnerable population.

Jonatan Núñez, a researcher at the Institute for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the public University of Buenos Aires, links the lack of access to electric service in the region to income level.

There is a link “to formal employment, which not only guarantees access to a certain level of income, but also to renting housing in certain areas, and the possibility of gaining access to areas with better energy infrastructure. In poor neighborhoods, there is no access to electricity or gas networks. They are put in place manually and that generates blackouts or precarious conditions that can cause fires,” he told IPS from Buenos Aires.

In Mexico, poverty rose as a result of the pandemic, affecting up to 58.2 million people, or 43.5 percent of the total population, according to official data released in September. This meant a more than six percent increase in poverty compared to 2018, despite the millions of government social programs aimed at tackling chronic poverty in the country.

In urban areas, liquefied petroleum gas and gasoline experienced the largest price hikes, while in rural areas, coal and firewood reported the highest increases, perhaps as a substitute for fossil fuels.

Due to the rise in gas prices, driven by international prices, the Mexican government created the state-owned company Gas Bienestar, which sells natural gas at a subsidized price with a ceiling.

At most service stations in Brazil, consumers can choose between gasoline and ethanol at the pump. But consumers only use the biofuel when its price is favorable compared to gasoline. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Brazil, where poverty was already on the rise before the pandemic, is also facing higher domestic gas prices and the consequent increase in firewood consumption.

Brazil is a pioneer of the energy transition because of its promotion of clean energy and the low level of polluting fuels burnt in households. But in the region’s largest economy the burning of firewood has overtaken bottled gas since 2018, a trend that has been exacerbated since then, according to figures from the government’s Energy Research Company (EPE).

The existence of subsidies and frozen rates makes it more difficult to estimate energy inequality, as they do not reflect real costs, according to the experts consulted.

Energy poverty is a hurdle in the way of achieving the goals of the international Sustainable Energy for All Initiative, the program to be implemented during the United Nations Decade of Sustainable Energy for All, from 2014 to 2024.

This initiative seeks to ensure universal access to modern energy services and to double the global rate of energy efficiency improvements and the share of renewable energies in the global energy mix.

In addition, energy poverty stands in the way of reaching goal seven of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aims to ” Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” as part of the 2030 Agenda, adopted in 2015 by the members of the United Nations.

San Martín, the Chilean expert, said governments face a “complex problem” because there are many demands and difficulties.

“The planet is not infinite. The challenge must be adapted to the situation of each society and to territorial and cultural conditions. We have to work on how we use energy. The energy transition must consider access, quality and equality and it must be taken into account that we cannot continue spending beyond the planet’s capacity,” she said.

Núñez from Argentina said the solution is to consider energy as a right rather than a commodity.

“The response has been quite weak. Most of the energy consumed comes from gas-fired thermal power plants and hydroelectric plants, which are granted in concession to private companies. Services are still in the hands of private companies,” he stressed.

Gladys Habu on the beach in the Solomon Islands. She has filed a deeply personal story about how climate-change-induced sea-level rises have submerged her grandparents’ island home. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Kenya, Dec 15 2021 (IPS)

On Gladys Habu’s birthday, she filmed a message to world leaders while standing waist-deep in the sea next to a dead tree stump – the only remnant of Kale Island now submerged underwater due to climate-change-induced sea-level rise.

Climate change impacts have deeply personal meaning for this young climate activist from the Solomon Islands – Kale Island was her grandparents’ home.

“I strongly believe an investment in youth is a direct investment into the climate workforce. An active force that will enable the marked difference we all hope to see in the fight for a climate-safe future,” Habu says.

Habu is a Commonwealth Points of Light award winner, the Queen’s Award for activism for her climate change work in the Pacific. She is one of 1.5 billion young people in Commonwealth countries under the age of 30 who are among the most vulnerable to climate change, but least involved in decision-making.

“Climate change is a multifaceted, cross-cutting issue that affects all aspects of life, and therefore is one of the most challenging to face. Despite increased scientific knowledge and evidence of climate change on the ground, there is still a trending rise in investments into profit-oriented industries that contribute critically to the problem,” she tells IPS.

Habu says youths have the numbers to be effective agents of positive change in climate action. But beyond their role as advocates, they must act from the forefront of climate action, taking part in policymaking and implementation.

However, she says, there needs to be a large-scale investment in young people.

Addressing climate change is crucial and urgent. The UN’s State of Food Security and Nutrition says that as many as 161 million more people faced hunger in 2020 than in 2019, driven by increased climate variability and extremes, conflicts and economic slowdowns, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The UN says that an estimated 21 percent of the population in Africa, 9.0 percent in Asia, and 9.1 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean are affected by hunger. As Commonwealth youth leaders recently highlighted, these regions are also the most affected by climate change.

As the debilitating effects of climate change unravel, the report shows that compared to 2019, an estimated 46 million more people in Africa, 57 million in Asia and approximately 14 million more in Latin America and the Caribbean were affected by hunger in 2020.

Young climate activist Lucky Abeng speaking at the Commonwealth Pavilion at COP26. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

Youth can play a crucial role in halting the fast pace of climate change and reversing its devastating effects – such as accelerated world hunger and malnutrition, Nigerian youth leader Lucky Abeng says.

However, this will need increased youth participation in all levels of climate action.

Abeng was excited to see the level of youth engagement at the recently concluded COP26.

“I was personally impressed to see the interest shown by youth in Glasgow. Joining voices to call for climate justice and bridging the gap on intergenerational equity.”

As the Commonwealth Climate Change Network (CYCN) Chair for Grassroots Engagement and Participation, Abeng is hopeful that position papers submitted by youth activists to various governments will be mainstreamed in plans and programs for implementation post-COP26.

The Commonwealth Youth Climate Change Network has over 2000 climate, sustainability, and environment youth leaders and youth-led organisations focused on climate adaptation and mitigation and sustainable development.

Abeng’s hope could well be realised through the Commonwealth Secretariat’s mandate to include young people in national development policies and plans at all levels of decision making.

Former CYEN Special Envoy for Climate Change Jevanic Henry with fellow delegates at the Youth4Climate Summit 2021. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

Jevanic Henry, an Assistant Research Officer at the Commonwealth Secretariat, tells IPS that through the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, all the Commonwealth Regional and National Climate Finance advisers seek to consider gender and youth concerns in all climate finance initiatives.

Henry, who served as a Special Envoy on Climate Change for the Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN),  says the Commonwealth Secretariat is “uniquely placed to further advance this mainstreaming, building on the political will by the Commonwealth Heads (of State), technical expertise available within the Secretariat to support member countries and its convening power to work with other development partners at all levels.”

On the sidelines of COP26, Abeng witnessed various events on the nexus between youth, marginalised people, and climate change.

Beyond these events and progressive discussions, Abeng hopes to see realistic and sincere youth-focused implementation plans embedded into countries’ national plans, including their Nationally Determined Contributions to limit global warming.

He says genuine commitment to youth participation in climate action should be demonstrated through funded capacity-building and empowerment opportunities for young people.

Henry believes it can be done. First, “we need a good policy environment that recognises the needs and potential role of young people.”

While there is progress, it is crucial that in Commonwealth funded projects, youth and women are equal in decision-making and beneficiaries of climate action.

“We are aware that youth are change-makers in many ways and need practical support to advance those ideas,” Henry says, and proper funding is crucial.

Commonwealth Assistant Research Officer Jevanic Henry joins a Beach Cleanup with community youth council in St Lucia. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

“There is a need for improvement in the design of new and existing climate and disaster risk reduction international financing pools to ensure they are made more accessible for young people,” Henry says.

Within the Commonwealth Secretariat, there are efforts to put youth in the forefront to independently drive national climate action and advance towards integrating and adopting youth-sensitive budgeting.

For these reasons, Henry explains, the Commonwealth Secretariat is advancing a training programme on enhancing access to sustainable financing for green entrepreneurship, focusing on youth.

“For example, ahead of COP26, in conjunction with the Government of Saint Lucia, we run a youth entrepreneurship training,”  he says, giving them the information to take advantage of the opportunities that come with a green economy and accessing financing for projects and ideas.

Habu says youth have made great strides in climate advocacy and influencing policy change.

“Imagine how much more can be achieved by youths from the forefront of climate action.”

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Anti-racism protesters in Brooklyn, New York, demanding justice for the killing of African American, George Floyd. May 2021. Credit: UN News/Shirin Yaseen

By Walden Bello and Isabel Ortiz
NEW YORK, Dec 15 2021 (IPS)

In recent years, the world has been shaken by protests. From the Arab Spring to the social uprisings in Chile and Latin America, the world has seen a dramatic rise in protests. In a polarized world, the COVID-19 pandemic has only accentuated feelings of outrage and discontent.

New research brings evidence of this by analyzing nearly three thousand protests since the beginning of the 21st century, in over a hundred countries covering more than 93 percent of the world population.

Beginning in 2006, there was a steady rise in overall protests each year up to 2020. As the global financial crisis began to unfold in 2007-08, demonstrations increased, and further intensified after 2010 with the worldwide adoption of austerity cuts.

Frustration grew over the lack of decent jobs, inadequate social protection and public services, unfair taxation and a perceived lack of real democracy and accountability of decision makers to the people.

This led to a new and more political wave of protests in 2016, often becoming “omnibus protests” (protests addressing multiple issues) against the political and economic status quo. Polls worldwide reflect dissatisfaction with democracies and lack of trust in governments.

Increasingly, demonstrations are not only the purview of activists and trade unionists, but have become an outlet for the middle classes, women, youths, pensioners, indigenous and racial groups. These citizens do not consider themselves activists and yet they protest because they feel disenfranchised by official processes and political parties.

Decades of neoliberal policies have generated huge inequalities and eroded the incomes and the welfare of both the lower and middle classes, fueling feelings of injustice, disappointment with malfunctioning democracies, and frustration with failures of economic and social development.

Whist the media often portrays protests as sporadic, disorganized riots, most of the world protests studied were planned, with clearly articulated demands. The main cause of discontent (in 1503 protests) relates to the failure of democracies and political systems, lack of real democracy, accountability and justice; corruption; as well as the perceived power of a deep government or oligarchy, sovereignty and patriotic issues; and protests against wars, the surveillance of citizens, and anti-socialism/communism.

A second cause relates to economic justice, expressing grievance and outrage against unequal austerity cuts and policy reforms (1,848 protests), demanding improved jobs, wages and labor conditions, better public services and housing, agrarian and tax justice; and against corporate influence, deregulation, privatization, inequality and low living standards; as well as against pension reforms, high energy and food prices.

The third main cause of protests is the demand for civil rights (1,360 protests) on indigenous and racial rights; women’s rights; labor rights; LGBT and sexual rights; right to the commons (digital, cultural, atmospheric); immigrants’ rights; freedom of assembly, speech, and press; prisoners’ rights and religious issues.

A last cluster of protests encompases demands for global Justice (897 protests) on issues such as environmental and climate justice; against the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the European Union/European Central Bank; against imperialism (United States, China); against free trade or the G20 – demanding a better and more equitable world order.

Not only has the number of protests increased, but also the number of protestors. Crowd estimates suggest that at least 52 events had one million or more protesters.

The period 2006-2020 has evinced some of the largest protests in world history; the largest recorded was the 2020 strike in India against the government’s plan to liberalize farming and labor, estimated to have involved 250 million protestors.

The second decade of the 21st century has also seen a global rise of the far right, attracting dissatisfied citizens to a radical right “counterrevolution” that typically includes an assault on the tenets of liberal democracy by authoritarian leaders.

Falling into this category were the QAnon protests in 2020 in the United States and globally; opposition to Muslims, migrants, and refugees in Europe; and the protests against the Workers Party in Brazil in 2013 and 2015.

While the rhetoric is anti-elite, far right politics does not seek significant structural power change, rather directing the popular fire and fury against minorities, denying rights to migrants, blacks, gays or Muslims, who are depicted as a threat to the jobs, security and values of the majority.

Other rallying cries include calls for personal freedoms (to carry a gun, not to wear a mask, not to be quarantined), nationalism, and the promotion of traditional values. To counter radical right authoritarianism, societies must fight misinformation and expose the contradictions of far right politics.

Nonetheless, the overwhelming majority of protests have made progressive demands for real democracy, civil rights, economic and global justice. Peaceful protests are a fundamental aspect of a vibrant democracy. Historically, protests have been a means to achieve fundamental rights at the national and international level.

While new research shows that global political instability is increasing, there are solutions. Governments need to listen to the grievances coming from protesters and act upon them. The demands of people around the world have much in common and ask for no more than established Human Rights and internationally agreed UN development goals.

Walden Bello is Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton and co-chair of the Bangkok-based progressive institute, Focus on the Global South.

Isabel Ortiz is Director of the Global Social Justice Program at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, and former director of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF.

 

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Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov. Screenshot of Nobel Peace Prize ceremony.

By Jerri Eddings
WASHINGTON, Dec 14 2021 (IPS)

Two global icons of press freedom accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, marking the first time since 1936 that journalists have been recognized with the world’s most prestigious award.

Underscoring the importance of journalism in combating authoritarianism and other destructive trends, the Nobel Committee honored Maria Ressa, co-founder and editor of the independent Philippine news site Rappler, and Dmitry Muratov, longtime editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper in Russia.

Both laureates and their colleagues have been subjected to harassment, intimidation and violence for their work exposing injustice and abuse at the highest levels.

In her acceptance speech, Ressa, a former winner of ICFJ’s top international award, noted that she was only the 18th woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. She said women journalists are “at the epicenter of risk” and added, “This pandemic of misogyny and hatred needs to be tackled, now.”

Ressa sharply criticized social media companies for making money by stoking violence and hatred, citing Facebook as the world’s largest distributor of news as well as misinformation. “These destructive corporations have siphoned money away from news groups and now pose a foundational threat to markets and elections.”

Ressa noted that in accepting the award she represents any journalist “who is forced to sacrifice so much to hold the line, to stay true to our values and mission: to bring you the truth and hold power to account.” She cited a long list of journalists who have been killed, imprisoned or otherwise persecuted for their work, from Malta to Saudi Arabia to Hong Kong.

Ressa sharply criticized social media companies for making money by stoking violence and hatred, citing Facebook as the world’s largest distributor of news as well as misinformation. “These destructive corporations have siphoned money away from news groups and now pose a foundational threat to markets and elections.”

She called for the regulation of what she termed “the surveillance economics that profit from hate and lies” and she called on the U.S. to “reform or revoke section 230, the law that treats social media platforms like utilities.”

Ressa, a longtime CNN reporter, also said journalism must be rebuilt for the 21st century, with information ecosystems based on facts. “We need to help independent journalism survive, first by giving greater protection to journalists and standing up against States which target journalists.”

In his acceptance speech, Muratov said journalism in Russia is “going through a dark valley. Over a hundred journalists, media outlets, human rights defenders and NGOs have recently been branded as ‘foreign agents.’ In Russia, this means ‘enemies of the people.’ Many of our colleagues have lost their jobs. Some have to leave the country. Some are deprived of the opportunity to live a normal life for an unknown period of time. Maybe forever.”

Stating that torture is the most serious crime against humanity, Muratov announced plans for an international tribunal against torture. He said it would gather information on torture in different parts of the world and would identify authorities responsible for torture. He said the initiative would depend on investigative journalists around the world.

“We hear more and more often about torture of convicts and detainees. People are being tortured to the breaking point, to make the prison sentence even more brutal. This is barbaric.”

This year, ICFJ worked with Ressa and Rappler to publish a big data case study that detailed the intensity and ferocity of online violence aimed at Ressa over a five-year period. The research found evidence that some of the attacks on Ressa are coordinated or orchestrated — a hallmark of state-led disinformation campaigns.

Ressa also is the object of multiple lawsuits aimed at silencing her and her colleagues. She faces the prospect of decades behind bars if convicted on all counts. ICFJ and the #HoldTheLine Coalition continue to call for these spurious charges to be dropped. ICFJ co-leads the coalition, a group of more than 80 groups advocating for Ressa and press freedom in the Philippines, alongside the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Ressa thanked the Coalition as well as all human rights groups “that help us shine the light.”

This article was originally published by IJNet, International Journalists’ Network

Visitors at booth for Beyond Expo. Credit: TechNode

By Siddharth Chatterjee and Jingbo Huang
BEIJING, Dec 14 2021 (IPS)

 

A landscape of shared global challenges

The COVID-19 pandemic has moved us farther away from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Data shows that the pandemic has pushed a further 124 million people into extreme poverty. Global poverty is now expected to be at 7% by 2030 – only marginally below the level in 2015. And with the global temperature increase already at 1.2 degrees, we are on the verge of the abyss. UN Secretary-General António Guterres is deeply concerned about the impact of the pandemic on the SDGs. But there is hope. He believes in the knowledge, science, technology, and resources to turn it around. He also urges further financing for development and climate action.

The SDGs can only be achieved with strong global partnerships and cooperation. Building back better calls for inclusive green growth, including integrated policy choices in governance, social protection, green economy, and digitalization.

The UN in China also recognizes the importance of equipping people with the skills in science, technology, and innovation needed for decent work, entrepreneurship, and the achievement of the SDGs.

What’s Next?

Against this backdrop, it was a pleasure to witness and participate in the Beyond International Technology Innovation Expo, which took place in Macao SAR, China, from 2-4 December 2021. The world can be reassured by the strong will for People-first Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) among the over 300 companies and over 20,000 participants gathered in Macao. Both of us joined the Expo, one physically and one remotely, and we commend Jason Ho and Gang Lu, the two young organizers who have shown their belief in the social, environmental and governance impact of technology, financing, and business, in setting the theme of the first Beyond Expo to be “what’s next?”.

The last day was dedicated to an SDGs Summit to highlight one of the major themes of the Expo, technology, investment, business for impact and the SDGs. The SDGs Summit consisted of three panel discussions: Impact investing, AI and ethics, and business social responsibilities. It was encouraging to hear that young start-ups and impact investors embed the SDGs in the DNA of their operations. Among them, there were initiatives on carbon neutrality, green agriculture, technology to empower rural women, and auto-driving boats to clean ocean garbage.

The co-authors Siddharth Chatterjee (left) and Jingbo Huang (right)

A new frontier for the UN

UNU in Macao, the UN organization in Macao and the focal point of the UN Country Team in China on digital technologies, played host and provided speakers to the second panel of the SDGs Summit. Attendees discovered how the latest technological developments found in China could offer ample solutions to the world’s development issues, especially those in the Global South, such as agriculture, health, and climate change. Seeing the vision of the organizers, panellists, and participants’ who are putting the SDGs at the core of their business rather than as a public relations tool provides hope for our collective future.

Beyond Expo also hosted a virtual panel featuring some UN organizations, entitled “How would the UN leverage technologies for SDGs: Conversations among technology leaders in the UN system”. It included key senior staff from the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology, UNDP, and UNOPS. They discussed how their respective organizations are using technologies to accelerate the SDGs, and how the UN can deliver as one, harnessing big data and innovation.

To 2030 and Beyond

Beyond Expo has shown us its potential as a platform where impact investors, companies, government, academia, and the UN can get together to discuss how to co-create a more sustainable future through technology and innovation. It is also a prime example of how emerging generations of entrepreneurs, technologists, and investors realize that sustainability is not just good for humanity but good for business.

The UN in China calls for action from all stakeholders, including governments, individuals, and businesses, and will stand ready to support future collaborations and new partnerships to generate solutions and explore innovations for the SDGs, towards the 2030 Agenda and beyond.

Siddharth Chatterjee
Mr. Siddharth Chatterjee took office as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in China on 16 January 2021 and is the designated representative of – and reports to – the UN Secretary-General.

Mr. Chatterjee has more than 25 years of experience in international cooperation, sustainable development, humanitarian coordination and peace and security in the United Nations and the Red Cross movement. Mr. Chatterjee holds a master’s degree in public policy from Princeton University in the United States of America.

Jingbo Huang
Dr. Jingbo Huang is the Director of the United Nations University Research Institute in Macau, a UN think tank on digital technology and SDGs. Jingbo has been serving the UN system for the past 20 years across five UN organizations. She holds a Doctor of Education degree from Columbia University and is also an alumna of Peking University.

 

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ColdHubs installation at Relife Outdoor Food Market, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. The World Bank estimates that 40 percent of all food produced goes to waste in Nigeria. Credit: ColdHubs.

By Busani Bafana
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Dec 14 2021 (IPS)

Food spoilage forced smallholder farmers out of pocket and out of business – until an entrepreneur came up with a cool idea.

Growing up on a farm in Southern Nigeria, Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu observed how smallholder farmers rushed to sell their produce before sunset to avoid spoiling or selling it at give-away prices. Ikegwuonu came up with a cool idea to save the produce from spoiling: solar-powered cold rooms.

Smallholder farmers in Africa experience high post-harvest food losses owing to poor handling, poor packaging and lack of storage for their produce before it reaches the market.

According to the World Bank, food loss accounts for 40 percent of all food produced in Nigeria.

ColdHubs Ltd is a Nigerian social enterprise that designs, installs, operates and rents walk-in cold rooms known as ‘ColdHubs’. The Cold Hubs can store and preserve fresh fruits, vegetables and other perishable foods, extending their shelf life from two to 21 days.

Describing spoilage as a wicked problem, Ikegwuonu’s ColdHubs concept is helping farmers and retailers preserve their produce for longer, reducing waste and ensuring farmers get better prices for it.

The mission is to reduce food spoilage due to lack of cold food storage at key points along the food supply chain, explains Ikegwuonu, who has won global recognition for his innovations in farming and entrepreneurship. In 2016 he was named a Rolex Award Laureate.

Social entrepreneur and farmer, Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, posing in front of one of his solar-powered cold rooms. Credit: ColdHubs

In 2003, Ikegwuonu started the Smallholders Foundation. This non-profit developed rural radio services, delivering information to improve agricultural methods and conserve the environment to more than 250 000 daily listeners across the country.

During a radio roadshow in the city of Jos, the capital of Plateau state in central Nigeria, where he was doing a radio programme on cabbage, Ikegwuonu realised many farmers were throwing away their produce because it was spoiling before they could sell it all.

“At that point, it dawned on us that there is no form of cold storage which is an important infrastructure for any outdoor markets for fresh fruits and vegetables. After some research, we built solar-powered cold rooms, and these were well received by farmers,” Ikegwuonu told IPS in an interview.

“Spoilage entraps farmers into poverty cycle because, by the time the food arrives in the outdoor market, the value has reduced, economically and nutritionally.”

Farmers and retailers rent out the walk-in cold rooms for a low fee of $0.25 (100 Naira) per 20kg plastic crate for one day. Each cold room has a capacity of storing three tonnes of food with other storage units that can hold 10 tons and 100 tons of food at a time.

Ikegwuonu said in designing the cold rooms, emphasis was placed on the solar power generation capacity to run the cold rooms every day of the week. The units generate energy from rooftop solar panels during the day. The energy is transferred and stored in batteries that run the cold rooms at night.

Currently, 54 cold rooms are operating in 38 clusters across two states in Nigeria, and Ikegwuonu plans to double the number in 2022.

ColdHubs have created 66 jobs for young women by hiring and training them as hub operators and market attendants. The ColdHubs, located in outdoor markets, serve more than 5 000 smallholder farmers, retailers and wholesalers in Nigeria.

In 2020, the cold rooms stored more than 40 000 tonnes of food which helped reduce food waste and increased farmers’ profits, according to Ikegwuonu.

“Farmers had commended the technology and have increased their income by about 50 percent before we started deploying ColdHubs. Now they are earning about $150 every month from selling the products that used to be spoiled and thrown away or sold at ridiculous rock bottom prices.”

Food waste occurs during industrial processing, distribution, and final consumption of food, research by the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition shows. In developing countries, food losses occur upstream in the production chain.

According to the Food Sustainability Index (FSI) developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit with the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition, food loss and waste need urgent action given its environmental and economic impacts. The FSI, which ranks countries on food systems sustainability – is a quantitative and qualitative benchmarking model measuring the sustainability of food systems in the categories of food loss and waste, sustainable agriculture and nutritional challenges.

Nigeria was ranked five with a score of 74.1 for food loss and waste on the FSI 2018 results for middle-income countries.

Spoilage of fruit and vegetables robs farmers of income while contributing to food waste. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

“Tackling consumer food waste and post-harvest waste (the loss of fresh produce and crops before they reach consumer markets) will involve everything from changing consumption patterns to investing in infrastructure and deploying new digital technologies,”  the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition report noted, emphasising that ending hunger and meeting rising food demand will not be possible without tackling high level of food loss and waste.

Fruits and vegetables have the largest losses across developing countries, accounting for 42 percent of the developing country loss and waste globally, a report by the Rockefeller Foundation found, noting that growth in the commercial sale and use of loss averting technologies among smallholder farmers and value chain actors was an opportunity to reduce spoilage.

An estimated 93 million smallholder farmers and food supply chain actors are affected by food loss in Nigeria.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has urged for accelerated global action to reduce food loss and waste, with less than nine years to the deadline for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  Seven years ago, global leaders agreed to the 17 SDGs, and Goal 12 specifically commits to halve by per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels by 2030.

Reducing food loss and waste contributes to the realisation of broader improvements to agri-food systems towards achieving food security, food safety, improving food quality and delivering on nutritional outcomes,” the FAO highlighted in marking the 2021 International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. The UN specialised agency has urged investment and prioritisation of new technology and innovations that directly address post-harvest food loss.

Investments to encourage African youth turning away from agriculture to reconsider opportunities in the sector is key given the need to generate jobs and repair food systems particularly impacted by the current COVID-19 pandemic, says Heifer International, which has promoted young, creative professionals deploying technology innovations to transform agriculture in Africa.

“Young entrepreneurs across Africa understand the struggles of their parent’s generation and have seen how this has discouraged the people around them from pursuing careers in the agriculture sector,” commented Adesuwa Ifedi, senior vice president of Africa Programmes at Heifer International.

With support from Heifer and the AYuTe Africa Challenge, Ikegwuonu predicts to expand from 50 to 5000 ColdHubs across West Africa in the next five years.

“Too many African farmers do not get the income they deserve because they have no way of keeping their produce fresh. We are revolutionising storage with our Cold Hubs and ensuring that farmers get value for their produce by avoiding spoilage,” said Ikegwuonu.

 

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By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec 14 2021 (IPS)

Transport ministers from across Asia and the Pacific are meeting this week to consider a potentially transformational agenda for how people and goods are moved around the region and across the globe.

Pre-COVID-19 transport connectivity weaknesses in the Asia-Pacific region became even more apparent during the pandemic: landlocked developing countries, least developed countries and small island developing States were particularly affected. Therefore, it is imperative that we accelerate meaningful change in transport systems as countries seek to put their development agendas back on track.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

It is against this backdrop that officials meeting at the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific for the fourth Ministerial Conference on Transport are debating a Regional Action Programme for 2022-2026: a new roadmap for a transport system needed to attain the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The new RAP would address such issues as increasing freight and passenger volumes, reflecting rising demand for freight transport and mobility. Indeed, two-thirds of global seaborne trade is concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region, which also is home to nine of the world’s busiest container ports. The region is currently responsible for more than 40 per cent of the global surface freight transport flows and by 2050 the continent’s demand for freight transport is projected to triple. Asia and the Pacific is expected to face greater trade exchanges, further substantial demographic growth and rapid urbanization coupled with high motorization rates in coming years.

To cope with such changes and demands, the RAP would encourage greater digitalization and innovation for transport; as the pandemic unfolded, we saw that accelerated adoption of digital technologies helped governments and private enterprises keep activities going amid border closures and other containment measures. Further deployment of smart transport systems to improve efficiency, resilience as well as social and environmental sustainability is undoubtedly a key priorities for building back better.

Other key provisions of the RAP include speeding up transitions to low-carbon transport systems. The transport sector is one of the highest contributors to climate change and Asia and the Pacific remains among the highest CO2 emitting regions in the world. There is a strong need for rapid decarbonization of the regional transport networks and related operations, including urban and public transport. Shifting to railways would also greatly boost sustainability of international freight transport and move to a more sustainable post-COVID-19 world. An abundance of renewable energy in some countries is an opportunity to switch to electric mobility in public transport. To support these efforts, ESCAP last month unveiled at the climate change conference in Glasgow plans for an Asia-Pacific Initiative on Electric Mobility.

In this vein, the outbreak of COVID-19 also had a profound impact on urban transport, accessibility and mobility. These challenges provide new momentum to transport and city planners to rethink forms of mobility as a service that is affordable, accessible, reliable and safe. Furthermore, gender gaps and inequalities in terms of access to transport and related opportunities persist, further inhibiting the capacity of the sector to equally address the social dimensions of sustainable development.

In the context of sustainable development, we cannot disregard the fact that 60 per cent of global road crash fatalities occur in the Asia and Pacific region. The General Assembly has proclaimed 2021 to 2030 as the Second Decade of Action for Road Safety, with a goal of cutting by half road traffic deaths and injuries; in response, ESCAP is preparing an Asia-Pacific Regional Plan of Action.

International freight transport remained largely operational throughout the pandemic, as countries took policy measures to preserve freight transport connectivity to support supply chains. The Asian Highway, Trans-Asian Railway and dry port networks established under ESCAP auspices serve as the backbone for land transport infrastructure connectivity and logistics in the region. They are also increasingly integrated with inter-regional transport corridors and port and shipping networks. In 2020 and 2021, these links brought countries together to capture and analyze their responses to the pandemic and the impacts of those actions on regional connectivity. Moving forward, they can be further leveraged to promote infrastructure and operational connectivity reforms in support of a seamless integrated web of intermodal transport connections underpinning the regional and global economy.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted progress in Asia and the Pacific towards many of the Sustainable Development Goals and, in some cases, reversed years of achievement. The transport sector, which is instrumental to attaining the SDGs, took a significant hit during the pandemic, but countries demonstrated an ability to move swiftly towards automation and innovation to maintain functionality and resilience, and support access to social inclusion. This also points to the capacity of the sector to take bold new steps towards low-carbon development. A new Regional Action Programme can prove to be pivotal in addressing the region’s lagging performance and enhancing resilience to future crises by reducing deep-rooted social, economic and environmental challenges.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

 

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Afghan women leaders and human rights defenders speak to the press outside of the UN Security Council chambers on 21 October 2021. Pictured from left to right: Asila Wardak, Fawzia Koofi (speaking), Anisa Shaheed and Naheed Farid. Credit: UN Women/ Amanda Voisard

By Rebecca Reichmann Tavares, Roberta Clarke and Meryem Aslan
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 14 2021 (IPS)

We are former UN officials with decades of combined experience supporting international civil society and governments to advance the rights of women and girls.

We came together to alert the United Nations and the international community to the urgency of preventing a human catastrophe in Afghanistan. Afghan women and men must not be condemned to yet another decade of regionalism/ sectarianism/tribalism and proxy wars.

The UN needs to step up its game, offer to facilitate a platform for inclusive leadership in the country that can bring Afghans together, and work together with them to prevent reemergence of proxy wars, building a road towards international consensus for peace and security.

The international community must ensure that Afghans, especially Afghan women and girls, participate on equal terms in the making of their country, re-establishing human rights monitoring mechanisms and, as a matter of urgency, accessing and monitoring distribution of humanitarian aid in Afghanistan.

As Naheed Farid, a Parliamentarian and House Chair of the Women’s Committee in Afghanistan said: “Action needs to be taken to ensure that the de facto authorities in Kabul develop an inclusive and fully representative governance body that represents the diversity of Afghan society.” 1

We encourage negotiations that create space for Afghan people, including women and girls, to take their destiny into their own hands. We also endorse the call for Afghan women’s centrality in decision-making on global aid made by Margot Wallstrom and Susana Malcorra on November 4th in PassBlue.

Life for Afghans, especially Afghan women and girls, has been insecure, dangerous, and constrained for decades. Armed conflict and militarism have stalled all prospects of development and peace for Afghanistan. Women and girls have been and remain the target of violent discrimination.

The 2020 Human Development Index for Afghanistan indicates that gender inequalities in health, education and control over economic resources remains high, ranking Afghanistan 157th among 162 countries in the gender inequality index 2.

The seizure of state power by the Taliban, the partial collapse of state services compounded by the recent measures to limit education for girls and remove women from the workforce, the increased retreat of women into their homes portends serious deterioration of women’s rights in Afghanistan and further widening of gender inequality in the country.

While Taliban are working to transform themselves from a radical movement into a legitimate state structure and try to govern the country, ethnic, communal and regional factions are starting to vie for power.

For example, on October 8th, the Islamic State Khorasan bombing in a Shiite Mosque in Kunduz province killed close to 70 people and injured 140 worshippers from a Hazara community 3. This was the second attack on a Shiite Mosque in one week. Earlier, the same group attacked a military hospital in Kabul, killing 20 people and injuring 16 4.

Testing the limits of Taliban governance, food and water shortages plague isolated communities and urban centers alike. A thirty year-drought, widespread displacement, lack of jobs and scarce cash have spun the economy into free fall as another brutal winter sets in. No information is available on the real costs of the Covid-19 pandemic. Recognizing Afghanistan’s rapidly deteriorating conditions, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, noted that the international community is in a “race against time” to prevent an impending humanitarian catastrophe.

Conditionality imposed by the international community for releasing aid may have already deepened the scale of human suffering. In addition, delivery of aid seems to becoming an important issue. Despite the promises of Taliban to allow humanitarian agencies to operate, USAID reports that at least two-thirds of aid organizations in Afghanistan have faced severe bottlenecks in aid delivery since the fall of Kabul.

Access to aid by to those who need it most may be the first casualty of a collapsing state. Food and supplies trickling into the country have been diverted to the black market by local power brokers. Almost no information is available on household distribution of aid or the amount and quality of aid reaching the Afghan people.

This situation leaves women and girls increasingly vulnerable to abuse and violence. As in many humanitarian emergencies, civil society monitors report that food aid is appropriated to exchange for sexual favors or child “marriages,” as desperate families bargain for survival. Single mothers are not recognized as heads-of-household by local authorities and therefore are likely to face barriers in accessing humanitarian assistance.

Exhaustive global research over decades has documented that aid delivered to women by women most effectively reduces “leakage,” ensuring that assistance reaches the most vulnerable groups. Afghan women are best placed to ensure that food and other humanitarian assistance reach children, the disabled and elderly, and especially female-headed households.

However, in addition to restrictions on women’s access to education and employment, the backsliding and regression on women’s and girls’ right can most strikingly be observed in their participation in decision-making mechanisms.

The Taliban’s formation of an all-male interim administration have eliminated women’s hard-won if still limited leadership roles in the executive and judiciary at all levels of government. Women’s equal participation in political and public life is not only a prerequisite for realizing a life free of violence and discrimination, but also for increasing the quality of development and aid and ensuring equal access to the benefits of aid.

We recognize that efforts of the last twenty years resulted in limited advances for most Afghan women and girls. The bulk of resources in the country went to the military investment and much aid was siphoned off by excessive corruption. . Yet good progress was made in opening up educational opportunities for girls and livelihood options for women.

Even more lasting is the dynamic network of women’s civil society organizations, sports, scientific, media and cultural groups that were built over the past twenty years. Resilient women and girls have fought against biases, even faced down stone-throwing crowds, to build their bicycle racing teams, their robotics organizations and women’s radio stations.

They run shelters for women expelled from their homes and promote females’ participation at all levels of government. Now, a generation of women and girls that entered public life as teachers, lawyers, journalists and politicians are feeling at a loss and in danger; they are afraid of losing the future.

We cannot be silent as this progress is walked back. Women’s and girls’ futures must not become casualties of the withdrawal of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan. The safety of hundreds of women’s human rights defenders, judges, politicians, physicians, professors, journalists and artists who are still in Afghanistan must be prioritized and they must be at the table in aid and political negotiations, putting aid distribution systems in place, monitoring delivery and building inclusive governance systems.

Humanitarian aid to stabilize the population will only be effective if women civil society leaders are positioned to monitor secure and timely distribution, and the inclusion of women must be top priority of aid and governance negotiations with the Taliban. The United Nations and the international donor community are morally obligated to ensure Afghan women’s access to humanitarian assistance, and time is running out.

Signed: Rebecca Reichmann Tavares, Roberta Clarke, Meryem Aslan, Moni Pizani Orsini, Madhu Bala Nath,Joanne Sandler, Roshmi Goswami, Socorro Reyes, Anne Stenhammer, Yamini Mishra, Lucia Salamea-Palacios, Roxanna Carillo, Susana Fried, Dina Deligiorgis, Bharati Silawal-Giri, Amarsanaa Darisuren, Sushma Kapoor, Chandni Joshi, Suneeta Dhar, Stephanie Urdang, Aster Zaoude, Achola Pala, Celia Aguilar Setien, Anne Marie Goetz, Elizabeth Cox, Nalini Burn, Ana Falu, Ilana Landsberg Lewis, Branca Moreira Alves, Memory Zonde-Kachambwa, Sangeeta Rana Thapa, Shawna Wakefield, Flora Macula, Guadalupe Espinosa, Ooyuna Oidov, Jean da Cunha

1 https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2021/10/news-afghan-women-leaders-speak-at-the-un
2 http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/Country-Profiles/AFG.pdf
3 https://thediplomat.com/2021/10/is-the-islamic-state-in-afghanistan-targeting-china/
4 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59133026

Rebecca Reichmann Tavares, Roberta Clarke and Meryem Aslan are former UN Women staff members

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Nazihah Noor
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec 14 2021 (IPS)

Failure to vaccinate most in poor countries sustains the COVID-19 pandemic. Rich country greed and patent monopolies block developing countries from affordably making the means to protect themselves.

Mutant menace
The SARS-CoV-2 virus has been mutating as it replicates. Numerous replications in hundreds of millions of hosts have generated many variants. Some mutations are more resilient than others, and better able to overcome human defences.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Early data suggest the B.1.1.529 Omicron variant is more transmissible than others, including Delta, and possibly more resistant to existing treatments and vaccines. Health authorities the world over are concerned WHO’s latest ‘variant of concern’ may trigger a new wave of preventable infections and deaths.

South Africans first scientifically identified the new variant, alerting global health authorities immediately. Instead of appreciating its prompt actions, southern African nations are being punished with travel restrictions.

In fact, Dutch health authorities acknowledge the new Omicron variant was already in western Europe before the first South African cases. Punitive responses – e.g., travel bans – may deter other governments from rapid action and notification, so essential for effective international cooperation.

Promises, promises
With huge inequalities in vaccinations – especially between high-income countries (HICs) and low-income countries (LICs) – the virus has been enabled to continue replicating, mutating, infecting and killing, especially those least protected.

Richer countries have taken more than half the first 7.5 billion vaccine doses. Rich countries have bought many – up to five – times their populations’ needs. Ten HICs will have more than 870 million excess doses by year’s end.

While some HICs have been shamed into pledging vaccine doses to LICs and lower middle-income countries (MICs), delivery has fallen well short of their modest promises. By late October, only about a tenth of the over 1.3 billion vaccine doses pledged had been delivered.

Nazihah Noor

Most rich countries have ignored WHO appeals to suspend boosters until the rest of the world is vaccinated. Ex-UK premier Gordon Brown notes that for every vaccine reaching LICs, there are six times as many boosters in rich nations.

US President Biden’s September summit set an end-2021 target of 40% vaccination of the world’s 92 poorest countries, but at least 82 are unlikely to meet this target.

As Brown observed, although the US accounts for half the vaccines donated, it has only delivered a quarter of its pledge. Most other rich countries have delivered less than a fifth. Only China and New Zealand have given over half of what they promised.

Apartheid victims
With vaccines being hoarded by HICs, less than 3% of LIC populations are fully vaccinated. By late November, only 5.8% in LICs had at least one vaccine dose, compared to 54% of the world.

Most LICs do not even book via COVAX – the global programme to distribute vaccines – as they cannot afford to pay for them. Also, the programme has never secured enough vaccine doses since its inception.

COVAX was supposed to provide two billion doses by end-2021, but under 576 million were actually delivered by November. Also, the WHO appeal to G20 countries to give COVAX priority has gone largely unheeded.

With LICs unable to vaccinate their populations, the pandemic will go on for years. WHO now expects around 200 million more infections in the year from 21 October, with total deaths expected to double from the five million to date! Unsurprisingly, vaccine apartheid’s worst victims are in the LICs.

Profits block progress
The World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meetings – scheduled to start on 30 November – were expected to decide on the waiver proposal. With no resolution likely, the meeting has been postponed indefinitely, ostensibly due to Omicron.

First proposed in October 2020, it is now supported by well over a hundred of WTO’s 164 member states. The elaborated waiver proposal, co-sponsored by 63 countries, would allow others to more affordably make the means to fight the pandemic, without fear of intellectual property (IP) litigation.

But over 14 months later, the proposal remains blocked. Most European countries continue to oppose the waiver request to temporarily suspend IP rights protecting corporate monopolies on COVID-19 medical technologies and products for the pandemic’s duration.

As the pandemic increasingly infects and kills in poor countries, the public is being misled about the waiver proposal. It is dishonestly claimed that new vaccines cannot be developed without patent protection. Worse, all developing countries are falsely said to lack technical expertise to make vaccines.

Profits against people
LICs have received than one percent of all Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines and 0.2 percent of Moderna’s. Instead, the three have prioritized their most profitable contracts with rich governments, while paying lip service to poor countries.

Pfizer expects to sell three billion doses by year’s end, and four billion more in 2022. With COVID-19 now endemic, Pfizer CEO Alberto Bourla expects to sell boosters for years to come, while Moderna recently announced an Omicron-specific booster.

Using the firms’ own earnings reports, the People’s Vaccine Alliance (PVA) estimates mRNA vaccine manufacturers – Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna – will make pre-tax profits of US$34 billion this year.

Maximizing profits by blocking the waiver is effectively prolonging the pandemic. Instead of vaccinating those who have not yet had their first shot, they make much more by selling booster vaccinations to HICs.

Despite getting over US$8 billion in public funding, the three have refused to transfer vaccine technology to developing countries. Instead, Pfizer’s Bourla has dismissed technology transfer to developing countries as “dangerous nonsense”.

Profitable catastrophe
The main barrier to vaccinating the world is profits. Clearly, the Omicron danger is due to the world’s failure to vaccinate billions of vulnerable people in developing countries. This catastrophe has been worsened by ongoing European opposition to their effort to suspend IP monopolies.

The 12 billion vaccines made in 2021 could have vaccinated the entire world, but clearly did not. Omicron is plainly due to corporations’ ability to profiteer from the pandemic, refuse to share knowledge and know-how, and bully governments into unfair contracts.

Nazihah Noor is a public health policy researcher. She holds a Master of Public Health and a BSc in Biomedical Science from Imperial College London, specializing in global health.

 

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There is a critical shortage of qualified healthcare staff in Malawi to deal with the growing mental health burden in the country. Credit: Charles Mpaka

By Charles Mpaka
Lilongwe, Malawi, Dec 13 2021 (IPS)

When a former deputy speaker of Parliament shot himself dead within the National Assembly buildings in Lilongwe in September 2021, it shook Malawi. It also turned attention to the mental health burden in the country.

Experts say that a sharp rise in suicide cases has become the most visible expression of the burden of mental health challenges in Malawi.

“There’s depression, stress and many other silent forms of disorders. More often, we act quickly on a mentally challenged person because he is causing havoc,” says Harry Kawiya, a psychiatric clinical officer at the Zomba Mental Hospital, Malawi’s only referral mental health facility and one of the two specialised institutions in the country. “But the rising of cases of suicides recently tells us the severity of the mental health problem among us, which we are not adequately addressing.”

National police records show that suicide cases have increased drastically in Malawi over the past three years. For instance, between January and March 2021, the country registered 76 suicides – an increase of nearly 50 percent over the same period last year.

One police station in Lilongwe registers an average of six cases every month, the station’s spokesperson, Foster Benjamin, tells IPS.

“This is a steep rise, and it’s worrying,” he says. “The reasons [why people are committing suicide] range from family disagreements to financial troubles. In almost all the cases, those that kill themselves are men.”

The former deputy speaker, Clement Chiwaya, 50, left a suicide note detailing frustrations with sorting out benefits, including an official vehicle which he had bought, as the reason.

In a village just outside Lilongwe, a man hanged himself around last year due to debts related to his small-scale tobacco farm.

His wife, Christina Makwecha, says she lost her 43-year-old husband in October 2020 after the tobacco marketing season had just closed.

“We made heavy losses such that we could not pay some of the debts for labourers and the inputs we got from agro-dealers,” says Makwecha, a mother of four children.

One evening on her return from a village savings group meeting in the area, she found the man hanging in a tree in a field not too far from their home.

“It was then that I remembered that for almost two weeks before the incident, he had become increasingly restless, unusually angry and started skipping meals,” she says.

While the country is registering a rising number of suicides, many Malawians lack the awareness of mental health disorders that lead to people killing themselves, says Dr Charles Masulani, Chief Executive Officer of the St John of God Hospitaller Services Ltd, a Catholic Church mental health hospital in Malawi.

“Just as people would know where to go when they have malaria because there is a lot of knowledge about malaria, we do not know about mental health disorders in Malawi. So, people tend to struggle within themselves without seeking help from counsellors, faith leaders or therapists, or any other who would offer help,” Masulani says.

Records at the hospital show that it registered 7,671 mental health patient consultations last year – including 4,142 men and 3,529 women.

The mental health disorders diagnosed included anxiety, bipolar disorder, psychosis, dementia, delusional disorder, depression, delirium, epilepsy, hippomania, antisocial personality disorder, learning disability and schizophrenia.

Experts say that the COVID-19 impact on businesses has worsened the high prevalence of mental health disorders in Malawi, and the government’s response has been falling short.

In 2017, the Office of Ombudsman investigation found glaring deficiencies in mental health management in the public health system.

It faulted the government for failing to fund district health offices adequately for them to be able to handle patients before sending them to the referral hospital.

The Ombudsman also blamed the Ministry of Health for the persistent acute shortage of psychiatric staff, which compromised the quality of care for patients with mental disorders.

The inquiry established, for instance, that in two districts in the central region, the mental healthcare worker to population ratio ranged between 1:80,840 and 1:558,470.

According to the report, the problem of staff shortage starts with how the training for doctors in Malawi is designed.

“Whilst the undergraduates are exposed to the different aspects of the medical profession including psychiatry, during the internship psychiatry is completely shunned thereby further depriving [the system of] additional and potential psychiatric staff,” reads the report.

The investigation further exposed inefficiencies in the procurement of psychotropic drugs for patients with mental disorders, leading to their unavailability most of the time.

Four years after the investigation, these challenges remain.

During the commemoration of World Mental Health Day in October, Dr Michael Udedi, a mental health expert in the Ministry of Health, admitted the critical shortage of specialised personnel in the public health system.

He said while the country does have some mental health clinicians and nurses in almost every district hospital of the country, there is only one psychiatrist based at Zomba Mental Hospital and no psychologist in public hospitals.

He also disclosed that in May this year, the Ministry of Health advertised vacancies to recruit psychologists; there was no response.

In addition, there is no dedicated budget for mental health, Udedi told IPS in an interview last week.

“Therefore, it is not easy to track the funding for mental health per se,” he says.

He, however, says the ministry does disburse some funding to the referral hospital. He also says it falls on district health offices to dedicate part of their funding from treasury towards mental health activities such as drug procurement.

In her report, the Ombudsman attributed the apparent lack of attention to mental health as a primary healthcare problem to a weak and old legislative framework.

The treatment of patients with mental disorders is catered for in the Mental Health Act passed in 1948 – when Malawi was still under British colonial rule.

“This law is out of touch with the current trends in mental health service delivery,” reads the report.

In 2000, Malawi developed its first National Mental Health Policy. But this too has had no significant impact on mental health service delivery. The policy has, thus, been under review.

Now the government hopes that the challenges in the sector will be addressed once a bill, currently being drafted, is tabled, and passed in Parliament, possibly in February next year.

The Mental Health Bill has a provision for ring-fenced mental health funding. According to Udedi, this is key to addressing most of the challenges in mental health.

“This will see to it that mental health is adequately funded. This would have an implication on human resources for mental health, that’s including support in training,” he says.

But Udedi also challenges communities to play their part in raising awareness, minimising stigma and discrimination towards people with mental health problems and linking such people with service providers for assistance.

 

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By Naureen Hossain
New York, Dec 13 2021 (IPS)

Governments are determined to control information and are prepared to imprison journalists to achieve this mission, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said following the release of their annual global census tracking journalists who were imprisoned and killed in 2021.

For the sixth year in a row, the census reported record numbers of incarcerated journalists. The census accounts for journalists held in government custody and remain imprisoned because of their work.

This year set a new global record with 293 journalists imprisoned as of December 1, 2021. Twenty-four journalists were killed during dangerous assignments, like reporting from conflict zones, in protests turned deadly, or in retaliation for their work.

What these numbers suggest, said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon is that “governments are determined to control and manage information, and they are increasingly brazen in their efforts to do so.”

Along with the census, a special report from CPJ Editorial Director Arlene Getz, explained the trends.

Across different regions, many factors contributed to the common and “increasing intolerance of independent journalism”.

Government authorities, particularly in autocratic leaderships, have bolstered their efforts to silence dissent and criticism, which in turn has stifled press freedom in those regions.

Through the implementation of legal rulings and policies, journalists not only face the threat of imprisonment with alarming alacrity, but authorities manipulate legislation to extend their sentences or keep them in police custody.

Technological and legal policies to increase online surveillance impacted journalists’ ability to share stories online because they face the increasing risk of censorship and retaliation.

The report also says journalists now face diverse tactics to censor them through increased surveillance, internet shutdowns and legal rulings.

The special report reveals that at least 17 journalists were charged with cybercrimes, which could result in criminal prosecution for news reported and distributed online.

The CPJ census lists the countries with confirmed cases of jailed journalists.

This year, China topped the census list, with 50 journalists imprisoned.
This year marks the first time Hong Kong has been included in the census. Eleven journalists from Hong Kong-based news agencies were detained under mounting tensions from the pro-democracy protests and the implementation of the National Security Law in 2020.

Following China, Myanmar has risen in this year’s census in the wake of the military coup on February 2021 and the crackdown on media outlets with 26 jailed journalists.

However, the report suggests that this number may be much higher, and the situation is graver than reported. Several journalists have either fled the country in exile or gone into hiding. The deeper concern is that this crackdown on independent reporting will return to the harsh media censorship of previous military regimes.

Ethiopia has become the second-worst jailor of journalists in 2021 after Eritrea in sub-Saharan Africa. Many journalists have been arrested in the wake of the civil war in Ethiopia, between the federal government and armed forces from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, with nine journalists still in custody.

Though they ranked lower than the top ten countries in the census list, the rapid decline in media freedom still comes as a shock because past reports indicated greater freedom than under the current government.

The report says that further investigations into these cases and those in other countries with confirmed imprisonments and deaths show a startling and disturbing attitude toward press freedom.

What the CPJ report reveals, that for all the international community’s calls for action to improve press freedom and protection for journalists, for all the public outcry when cases are made public, the countries which are most demonstrably guilty of suppressing press freedom have done little to address impunity or to change their tactics.

They are resorting to increasingly violent, intrusive, and invasive tactics to impede freedom of expression with a greater frequency. Even in the United States, 56 journalists were arrested or detained this year, primarily during protests.

The findings in the CPJ report reflects the continued tensions between governing authorities and the media. Without the media to hold them accountable, some governments will continue to act with impunity, sending the message of the lack of regard for freedom of expression if it threatens their power.

There is little hope that the number of jailed journalists will not be topped in the next year as long as countries act with impunity.

The CPJ will not give up its efforts to safeguard journalists.

In 2021, their advocacy contributed to the early release of over 100 journalists worldwide. In addition, they have recently launched a People’s tribunal to address impunity in journalist killings, which will rely on investigations and legal analysis to provide a framework for justice and accountability.

The CPJ’s Annual Report can be read here.

 

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Family members of Priyantha Kumara, who died in the Sialkot mob attack, taking part in religious rites at his funeral.

By Ameen Izzadeen
COLOMBO, Si Lanka, Dec 13 2021 (IPS)

Every time, breaking news of a barbaric crime or terror act is reported from anywhere in the world, peace-loving Muslims the world over feel dejected and wish it had not been another tragedy that will make others glower at them with suspicion as though they too are complicit in the crime.

But often, what they dread is the case, for more than 90 percent of such inhumane and barbaric acts – like the Sialkot slaying of a Sri Lankan factory manager and the Easter Sunday massacres — are associated with Islamic extremism.

Last Friday’s lynching of factory Manager Priyantha Kumara Diyawadanage in Pakistan by an extremist mob will not be the last of such acts.

No amount of ‘We Are Sorry Sri Lanka’ placards, flowers and candles at makeshift memorials and political statements denouncing the crime can bring back his life that was cruelly brought to an end as a burnt offering on the altar of bigotry in an expression of savagery that has no place in civilized society.

However much Pakistanis who are humiliated by extremism dissociate themselves from the horrible act, however profound their apology is, however remorseful Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, who decried the incident as Pakistan’s day of shame, is, the country will continue to be plagued by violent extremism unless and until extremism is rooted out by radical social reforms in line with the peaceful message of Islam.

The Priyantha Kumara lynching by a mob linked to an extremist outfit called Tehereek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, for tearing off a political poster that allegedly had some religious verses in Urdu warrants the immediate revocation of Pakistan’s blasphemy law or its amendment in keeping with the Islamic virtue of tolerance and magnanimity.

Research shows a higher prevalence of extremism in countries that have blasphemy laws than in countries that do not have such laws. Blasphemy laws are often misused to persecute the minorities or treat them as second-class citizens. Such laws are incompatible with the Islamic teaching which calls for protection of the minorities and non-interference in their worship.

If the Pakistan Government fails to make use of this heartrending incident as an opportunity to bring about radical reforms, it itself will be committing an act of blasphemy because its inaction allows the badly constructed law to distort and disgrace Islam.

Pakistan was carved out of the British Raj for the Muslims of the subcontinent. Its founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah promoted a theory of two nation two state, saying that the Muslims and Hindus were two different nations and belonged to two different civilizations and therefore needed to live in separate states.

The world’s first nation-state to be formed on the basis of religion, Pakistan, however, has never been a theocracy.

In a 2017 BBC interview, historian Ayesha Jalal pointed out that Jinnah envisaged Pakistan as a “homeland for India’s Muslims”, as opposed to an Islamic state. But she said that his theory had been used by Islamists “as an ideological device” to justify claims for Pakistan to be a theocratic state.

This is Pakistan’s existential crisis. While the extremists fight for the setting up of a theocracy, secular politicians skillfully make use of Islam and side with Islamists to swell their vote banks or to whip up nationalistic emotions against archrival India.

Perhaps, this was why Pakistan’s Defence Minister Pervez Khattak was seen belittling the gruesome murder of Priyantha Kumara, by calling it “youthful exuberance of Muslim youngsters” and “happens all the time”.

He reportedly added, “When the youth feel Islam has been attacked, they react to defend it.” This was while Premier Khan vowed to bring the murderous mob to justice and Pakistan police arrested more than 130 people.

If we play with fire, we get burnt. Pakistan has been burnt enough, yet it appears to have not learnt enough. Seven years ago this month, extremists carried out a gruesome school massacre in Peshawar. In this terror attack some 134 schoolchildren, aged between 8 and 18, and 16 staff members were brutally gunned down by the Pakistan Taliban. So why pamper the extremists?

In 2011, Pakistan’s Punjab Province Governor Salman Taseer was shot dead by a police guard over his opposition to the country’s blasphemy law that calls for death sentence to those who insult Islam or its holy personalities.

Taseer was also calling for the release of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was falsely accused by her neighbours of insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Taseer’s assassin was hailed as a hero by a large number of extremists who took to the street to celebrate the murder.

As a result of violent extremism, many non-Muslims find it difficult to accept the Muslims’ assertion that Islam is a religion of peace. What many do not understand is that there is little Islam in today’s world, although about 2 billion Muslims constitute one fourth of the world’s 8 billion population.

In Islam, jihad or holy war is not the norm, but a last resort exception to defend the oppressed. Vigilante justice has no place in Islam. The accused should be heard, Islam commands.

To whatever religion they belong, the problem with extremists is their ignorance of the teachings of the religion they are supposed to follow. As historian and comparative religions expert Karen Armstrong would say, “Terrorism has nothing to do with Muhammad, any more than the Crusades had anything to do with Jesus.”

Certainly, violence is not the answer to blasphemy. According to the Quran, the Prophet Muhammad was heaped the worst form of scorn. He was called a liar, a magician, a madman, and possessed. Garbage was thrown over his head and stone-throwing street urchins were set upon him.

Yet as commanded by God, he exercised beautiful patience — Sabran Jameelan — and when his companions sought permission to retaliate, he would teach them the virtues of patience and remind them that he was sent as a mercy to the whole world. He befriended his persecutors by practising the Quranic injunction which exhorts the Muslims to “repel that which is evil with that which is good (and virtuous)”.

Unfortunately, the verses on defensive wars the Prophet and the early Muslims were forced to fight were misinterpreted by latter day Muslim rulers and terrorists for political purposes. Glorification of violence in the name of Islam became the norm. Islam’s peaceful message was forgotten.

Also overlooked is the Quranic message against violence as explained in the story of angels who expressed their deep concern over bloodshed and mischief on earth when God wanted to create man. (Quran 2: 30.)

It appears that instead of Islam, some Muslims are following a violent creed and calling it Islam. The fake Islam is largely practised while the real Islam remains buried. The task before the Muslims is to search for the buried Islam, resurrect it and live it.

Ameen Izzadeen is the deputy editor of the Sunday Times, Sri Lanka. He also writes a weekly column for the Daily Mirror, Sri Lanka, on international politics and good governance issues; and is a visiting lecturer in journalism and international politics.

 

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By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 13 2021 (IPS)

Created in 1945 following the devastation caused by World War II, the United Nations was mandated with the task of maintaining international peace and security as one of its primary political missions.

But the seriousness of its far-reaching mandate has been tempered by occasional moments of levity which have rocked the “glass house by the east river” with laughter — as recounted in a newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment –and Don’t Quote me on That”.

Over the years, the UN has remained a rich source of anecdotes originating in the General Assembly, the Security Council, and the UN’s watering hole, the delegate’s lounge.

One of the memorable anecdotes, recounted in the book, is a confrontation that took place in the General Assembly Hall in October 1960 during the height of the Cold War, when Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev removed his shoe and kept banging on his desk on a point of order.

As the shoe-banging continued, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, whose speech was being rudely interrupted, turned to the President of the General Assembly and remarked: “Mr. President, I am waiting for a translation”, as the entire Assembly erupted in laughter.

The two working languages of the United Nations have been primarily English and French, although there are four other official languages recognized by the world body: Chinese, Arabic, Spanish and Russian—with translations available in all six languages to delegates on their earphones.

A former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, was fluent in three of the six languages: English, Arabic and French. Asked at a briefing with reporters about his fluency in languages, he jokingly said his primary language was Arabic “because when I fight with my wife, I fight in Arabic.”

A former US ambassador to the United Nations once provided an amusingly light-hearted definition of diplomacy: 97 percent alcohol, 2 percent protocol and one percent Geritol, a multi-vitamin drink probably meant to energize negotiations.

But diplomacy at the UN is much more than socializing– even as receptions and cocktail parties take place every day – until the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world body to a virtual standstill temporarily suspending the routinely heavy drinking, mostly duty-free liquor (and according to some diplomats,” the best things in life are mostly duty-free.”)

When the annual election of the President of General Assembly resulted in an unprecedented 73:73 tie in the 1970s, the outgoing President decided to break the deadlock with the flip of a coin, as agreed to by the two candidates. But according to a joke circulating in the delegate’s lounge, the tossed coin apparently had two heads and no tail. Rigged elections at the UN?

Just after a band of mercenaries tried to oust the government of the Maldives, a tiny island nation with no army, navy or air force back in the 1980s, I ignorantly asked a Maldivian diplomat about the strength of his country’s standing army. “Standing army?”, the diplomat asked with mock surprise, “We don’t even have a sitting army.”

When the right-wing, hardline conservative John Bolton was US Ambassador to the UN (2005-2006), he notoriously remarked: “There’s no such thing as the United Nations. If the U.N. secretariat building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.” The punchline, however, came from a New York Times columnist who said Bolton would do better as an urban planner than a US diplomat.

Meanwhile, when Ambassadors and other lower-ranking diplomats arrive in New York, most of them experience “culture shock” being forced to adjust to New York city living– including food, language and apartment living.

In the 1970s, the New York Daily News recounted a story, widely circulated in the UN delegate’s lounge, of a newly-arrived diplomat from a conflict-ridden country who was posted to New York– considered a safe-haven– following death threats against him by a rebel group in his home country. A few weeks after his arrival, he found a note slipped under his Manhattan apartment door with an ominous message: “The exterminator will be here tomorrow.”

Panicked at the thought the rebel group had extended its reach, he was about to rush to the nearest police precinct when he accosted the clerk at the reception desk in the lobby, who told him: “Sir, the exterminator will be here not to kill diplomats, but to exterminate roaches, bed bugs and mice.” That was one of the first diplomatic lessons in Manhattan apartment living.

Meanwhile, Thalif Deen, author of the book, “No Comment – and Don’t Quote me on That”, who was recently interviewed by Thanos Dimadis, executive director of The Association of Foreign Press Correspondents in the USA (AFPC-USA), recounts some of the even more unforgettable moments both inside and outside the UN.

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: You are a veteran journalist who has covered UN affairs for decades. Could you share a few of the lessons you have learned over the years as a UN correspondent? And when it comes to following and covering UN news, what has been the most difficult part of your job?

A: The United Nations has long been described as “the glass house by the east river.” But regrettably, the glass house is more opaque than transparent—particularly for news reporters.

The political reporting at the UN is largely focused on military conflicts, civil wars, genocide, human rights, peacekeeping, nuclear disarmament and war crimes—mostly underlying its primary mandate, namely, maintaining international peace and security.

But at IPS, our coverage was primarily on the UN’s socio-economic agenda, long neglected by the main stream media and international wire services. We aimed to fill that gap.

The author at the IPS Office in the UN Secretariat in New York.

Perhaps the most difficult part of the job was that journalists, rarely if ever, were able to get any on-the-record comments or reactions from ambassadors, diplomats and senior UN officials because most of them follow the advice given to Brits during war time censorship in the UK: “Be like Dad, Keep Mum”.

As Winston Churchill once remarked: “Diplomacy Is the art of telling people “to go to hell’ in such a way they ask for directions.” But as a general rule, most ambassadors and diplomats avoided all comments, particularly on politically sensitive issues, with the standard non-excuse: ”Sorry, we have to get clearance from our capital”. But that “clearance” never came.

Still, it was hard to beat a response from a tight-lipped Asian diplomat who once told me: “No Comment” – “And Don’t Quote Me on That.”

And most senior UN officials, on the other hand, never had even the basic courtesy or etiquette to respond to phone calls or email messages—or even an acknowledgment. The lines of communications were mostly dead.

When I complained to the media-savvy Shashi Tharoor, a former Under-Secretary-General for Public Information and a one-time journalist and prolific author, he was explicit in his response when he said that every UN official – “from an Under-Secretary-General to a window-washer”—has the right to express an opinion in his or her area of expertise. But that rarely or ever happened.

A Brazilian diplomat once gave me an exclusive inside story, but warned it was “not for attribution and strictly off the record”. But being familiar with the New York City’s cultural scene, he added: “Off, Off, Off the record. Like Off, Off Broadway.”

Still, there have been rare instances of UN officials, mostly former UN officials, who have no qualms about providing on-the-record comments. As I was doing a wrap-up of the historic, two-week long Earth Summit in Rio in June 1992, I approached Dr Gamani Corea, a former Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and a member of the Sri Lanka delegation, for a final comment on the disappointing results of the much-ballyhooed conference.

“We negotiated the size of the zero”, he said, with a tinge of sarcasm, as he held out his fingers to indicate zero. But that comment would come only from an ex-UN official.

Q: What were some of the historic moments during your journalistic career at the UN?

A: When the politically-charismatic Ernesto Che Guevara, once second-in-command to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, was at the United Nations to address the General Assembly sessions back in 1964, the U.N. headquarters came under attack – literally. The speech by the Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary was momentarily drowned by the sound of an explosion.

The anti-Castro forces in the United States, backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), had mounted an insidious campaign to stop Che Guevara from speaking. A 3.5-inch bazooka was fired at the 39-storeyed Secretariat building by the East River while a vociferous CIA-inspired anti-Castro, anti-Che Guevara demonstration was taking place outside the U.N. building on New York’s First Avenue and 42nd street.

But the rocket launcher – which was apparently not as sophisticated as today’s shoulder-fired missiles and rocket-propelled grenades – missed its target, rattled windows, and fell into the river about 200 yards from the building. One newspaper report described it as “one of the wildest episodes since the United Nations moved into its East River headquarters in 1952.”

After his Assembly speech, Che Guevara was asked about the attack aimed at him. “The explosion has given the whole thing more flavor,” he joked, as he chomped on his Cuban cigar.

When he was told by a reporter that the New York City police had nabbed a woman, described as an anti-Castro Cuban exile, who had pulled out a hunting knife and jumped over the UN wall, intending to kill him, Che Guevara said: “It is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun.”

A second historic moment was the visit of Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). On his 1974 visit, he avoided the hundreds of pro and anti-Arafat demonstrators outside the UN building by arriving in a helicopter which landed in the dead of night on the North Lawn of the UN campus adjoining the East River.

Arafat was escorted by security men into the UN building and to the Secretary-General’s 38th floor where he spent the night in a temporary bedroom. But that bedroom had not been used for years, and the color of water was brown when the bathroom’s faucet was opened. Mercifully, it was not an attempt by Israeli intelligence to poison the PLO leader.

There was also a legendary story of how Arafat, who was on an Israeli hit-list, never slept on the same bed on two consecutive nights. So, the chances are he never took that risk even inside the UN building.

Incidentally, when anti-Arafat New York protesters on First Avenue shouted: “Arafat Go Home”, his supporters responded that was precisely what he wanted—a home for the Palestinians to go to.

When Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi visited the UN in September 2009, the London Guardian said he “grabbed his 15 minutes of fame at the UN building in New York and ran with it. He ran with it so hard he stretched it to an hour and 40 minutes, six times longer than his allotted slot, to the dismay of UN organizers”.

Incidentally, according to one news report, there were 112 different spellings of the Libyan leader’s name, both in English and Arabic, including Muammar el-Qaddafi, Muammar Gaddafi, Muammar al-Gathafi, Muammar El Kadhafi, Moammar el Kazzafi, Moamer, El Qathafi, Mu’Ammar, Gadafi, and Moamar Gaddafi, amongst others.

The Wall Street Journal ran a cartoon making fun of the multiple spellings, with a visiting reporter, on a one-on-one interview in Tripoli, telling the Libyan leader: ”My editor sent me to find out whether you are really Qaddafi, Khaddafi, Gadafi, Qathafi or Kadhafi?”

Q: As a UN correspondent, how has covering UN affairs changed your view of the UN and its role on a global scale?

A: The UN’s biggest shortcoming is its failure to resolve some of the longstanding political issues, including Palestine, and more recently the military conflicts and civil wars in Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ethiopia and Myanmar, amongst others.

In most of these conflicts, the five veto-wielding permanent members (P-5) of the Security Council, namely the US, UK, France, China and Russia, are sharply divided and protect their allies– and their million-dollar arms markets because the P-5 are the primary arms suppliers to the warring parties in several of these conflicts.

Meanwhile, a new Cold War -– this time, between the US and China —is threatening to paralyze the UN’s most powerful body, even as military conflicts and civil wars are sweeping across the world. The growing criticism against the Security Council is directed largely at its collective failures to resolve ongoing conflicts and political crises in several hot spots.

The sharp divisions between China and Russia, on one side, and the Western powers on the other, are expected to continue, triggering the question: Has the Security Council outlived its usefulness or has it lost its political credibility: a question which also changed my views on the UN and its political effectiveness?

The five big powers are increasingly throwing their protective arms around their allies, despite growing charges of war crimes, genocide and human rights violations against some of these warring nations.

At the same time, the Security Council has come under heavy fire for the misuse of its veto powers, held by the Big Five, while discussions on the reform of the Council have dragged on for over 20 years.

The bottom line is that the P-5 want to hold onto the monopoly of the veto power. A proposal for the expansion of the permanent members, from five to maybe ten, comes with a catch: if new permanent members are appointed, they should have no veto powers.

The countries knocking at the Security Council door for permanent memberships include India, Brazil, Japan and Germany. But the opposition to these candidacies have come from Italy, Argentina, Mexico, Pakistan and South Korea. So, the reform of the Security Council remains deadlocked.

Meanwhile, the UN’s successes are largely in the field of humanitarian assistance, plus in development funding and environmental protection. During September through November 2021, the UN and its NGO (non-governmental organization) partners provided 7.2 million people in war-ravaged Afghanistan with food assistance; reached more than 880,000 people with primary and secondary healthcare consultations; assisted almost 199,000 drought-affected people through water trucking; and treated more than 178,000 children under five for acute malnutrition, according to the latest figures.

Thalif Deen, Senior Editor & Director, UN Bureau, Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, served twice with the Sri Lanka delegation to the UN General Assembly sessions and is a Fulbright scholar with a Master’s Degree (MSc) in Journalism from Columbia University.

The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

 

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On Cerro 18, above the affluent municipality of Lo Barnechea, in the coveted eastern sector of Santiago de Chile with a stunning view of the valley and the Andes Mountains, 300 families live in five camps or irregular settlements, many without water, electricity or sewage. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Dec 10 2021 (IPS)

Camps made up of thousands of tents and shacks have mushroomed in Chile due to the failure of housing policies and official subsidies for the sector, aggravated by the rise in poverty, the covid-19 pandemic and the massive influx of immigrants.

“Three years ago we were about to be evicted and when my children would head off to school they never knew if our little house would be there when they got home. One morning we were going to school and the carabineros (militarized police) were coming. Many times I had to go home early from work. It was chaotic, difficult and distressing,” Melanni Salas told IPS during a visit to the site.

Salas, 33, presides over Senda 23, one of the five camps that bring together 300 families who occupied public land in Cerro 18, in the municipality of Lo Barnechea, on the east side of Santiago. They have been building shacks with wood and other materials within their reach, which they are gradually trying to improve.

The threat of eviction ceased at the start of the covid pandemic, but the shadow still hangs over their heads because the municipality “built us a septic tank and gave us gifts for Christmas, but has said nothing about housing,” she said.

The community activist previously lived for 19 years as an “allegada”, the name given in Chile to people or families who share a house with relatives or friends, in overcrowded conditions. In 2016 she occupied the land where she and her husband Jorge built the precarious dwelling where she now lives with her three children aged 15, 13 and five years old.

“This used to be a garbage dump and now it is clean and there are houses,” said Salas. “Mine gets a little wet inside when it rains because it is made of wood and because of the strong wind. But I have drinking water, electricity and sewerage thanks to my mother-in-law who lives further up. The neighboring family has neither water nor sewage. They are a couple with three children and one of them, Colomba, was born a week ago.”

She explains that her neighbors “use the bathroom at their brother’s place who lives nearby, but during the pregnancy she went back to her mother’s house.”

In the camps people cook, wash, sleep and live together, observed by passers-by who have become accustomed to this new urban landscape. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Hundreds of homeless tents now line the main avenues of Santiago de Chile.

Explosive situation

“Every day more than 10 families come to live in an encampment in Chile,” says Fundación Techo Chile, a social organization dedicated to fighting against housing exclusion in the cities of this South American country.

The problem is also seen along the avenues and in the parks where hundreds of men and women set up tents to sleep, cook, wash and live together in full view of passers-by who have become accustomed to the scene.

In the last two years, the number of families living in 969 of these camps with almost no access to water, energy and sanitation services has increased to 81,643, a survey by the Fundación Techo Chile found.

In Chile, the term “campamentos” or camps has also come to refer to slums or shantytowns known traditionally as “callampas”, such as the one where Salas lives, which are built on occupied land and consist of houses made of light materials, although the neighborhoods are sometimes later improved and upgraded, but still lack basic services.

These slums are mainly in Santiago and Valparaíso, 120 kilometers north of the capital, in central Chile. But they are also found in the northern cities of Arica and Parinacota and the southern city of Araucanía.

They are home to 57,384 children under the age of 14 and some 25,000 immigrants, mostly Colombians, Venezuelans and Haitians. “Today, families live there who six months or two years ago were ‘allegados’ living in overcrowded, informal, precarious or abusive conditions. That is what is understood as a housing deficit,” Fundación Techo Chile’s executive director, Sebastián Bowen, told IPS.

“The 81,000 families living in camps are the most visible part of the problem, but the housing deficit, covering all the families who do not have access to decent housing, exceeds 600,000,” he said.

The State provides some 20,000 social housing solutions each year, a figure that is highly insufficient to meet the current need.

According to Bowen, “if we want to solve the problem of the camps, we must structurally change our housing policy to guarantee access to decent housing, especially for the most vulnerable families.”

This explosion coincided with the social protests that began in October 2019 and with the arrival of coronavirus in the country in March 2020.

According to the National Socioeconomic Characterization Survey (Casen), 10.8 percent of Chileans currently live in poverty, which means more than two million people, although social organizations say the real proportion is much higher.

Chile, with a population of 19 million people, is considered one of the most unequal countries in the world, as reflected by the fact that the 10 percent of households with the highest incomes earn 251.3 times more than the 10 percent with the lowest income.

View of some of the houses in Cerro 18, a shantytown where 300 families live, most of them without even the most basic services. In what used to be a garbage dump, on the hillside of one of the wealthy neighborhoods of the Chilean capital, they have built their houses using scrap wood and waste materials. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

The new constitution holds out hope

Benito Baranda, founder of the Fundación Techo, an organization that now operates in several Latin American countries, believes that the housing policy failed because it focuses on “market-based eradication, forming housing ghettos on land where people continue to live in a segregated manner.”

This policy is also based on a structure of subsidies “born during the dictatorship and which has remained in place because housing is not a right recognized in the constitution,” Baranda, now a member of the Constitutional Convention that is drafting a new constitution, which will finally replace the one inherited from the 1973-1990 military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, told IPS.

“The decision of where people are going to live was handed over to the market. Not only the construction of housing. And the land began to run out and the available and cheap places were in the ghettos,” he explained.

Baranda criticized the policy of “eradication”, “which created ghettos and generated much greater harm for people,” referring to the forced expulsions of slumdwellers and their relocation to social housing built on the outskirts of the cities, a policy initiated during the Pinochet dictatorship and which crystallized social segregation in the capital.

According to Baranda, “in the last four governments there has been the least construction of housing for the poorest families.”

Baranda was elected to the constituent assembly in a special election in May and proposes “to generate a mechanism that will progressively reduce the waiting times for housing, which today can stretch out to 20 years.”

Twenty-story buildings, where each floor has 50 17-square-meter apartments, are called “vertical ghettos” and are inhabited mainly by immigrants. These ones are located in the Estación Central neighborhood, along Alameda Avenue that crosses Santiago de Chile. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Privatization of social housing

Isabel Serra, an academic at the Diego Portales University Faculty of Architecture, believes that “the housing issue in Chile will be solved in some way through family networks…There is a lot of overcrowding here and small families are becoming the norm,” she told IPS.

According to Serra, the mushrooming of camps “clearly has to do with the influx of immigrants and this has grown especially in cities that are also functional or productive or extractivist hubs.”

She criticized the subsidy policy because these “are transferred to the private sector and what they do is drive up housing prices… and most of them are not used because they are not in line with the price of land and housing.”

“A highly financialized private market has made housing a tool for economic speculation…investors have decided to put their funds into the real estate market,” she said.

The problem has already reached the 155-member Constitutional Convention, which has been functioning since Jul. 4 and has a 12-month deadline to draft the new constitution, which must then be ratified in a plebiscite.

In September Melanni Salas and representatives of eight organizations met with Elisa Loncón, president of the Convention, to present her with the book “Constitution and Poverty”, which includes proposals to guarantee the right to housing.

“I hope they include this in the new constitution. The proposals were made by 25,000 excluded people…this document seeks to ensure that we are not left on the sidelines as always,” the community organizer explained.

A human right

Baranda said “in the constituent assembly we are working to get this enshrined as a right and to get the State to assume a leading role, not in the construction of housing itself, but in determining where people are going to live and creating the land bank that people have been demanding for so long.”

“We need the policies, by making land available and expropriating property that is not owned by the State, to create housing projects in places where there is social inclusion,” he stressed.

Serra agreed that “when the issue of housing is discussed in the constituent assembly, it will have to look at how the State buys and sells land.

“Housing is a basic human right and should be enshrined in the constitution, with all the parameters that are established for decent housing,” she argued.

Serra also called for “modernizing the instruments and the institutional framework dedicated to the provision of housing” because, she said, “currently the role of housing provision is clearly played by the market.”

She said it would require “a great deal of political will because land issues in general are political issues, very difficult to implement because there are many economic interests involved.”

Celia “Charito” Durán lives in the Mesana camp on Mariposas hill in the port city of Valparaíso, along with 165 other families, and counting.

The municipality delivers 3,000 liters of water per week to each house, using tanker trucks.

Durán said, however, that the priority is access “because if there is no road, we are cut off from everything: firefighters, water, ambulances.”

In Mesana there is no sewage system, only “cesspools, septic toilets and pipes through which people dump everything into the creek,” she told IPS by telephone.

On the hilltop the wind is very strong and every winter roofs are blown off and houses leak when it rains.

Durán, 56, has lived there since she was 37. She is confident that a solution to the social housing deficit will come out of the constituent assembly, after participating in meetings with Jaime Bassa, vice-president of the Constitutional Convention.

“We have the hope and expectation that the right to housing will be included. So, if tomorrow it is not fulfilled, you could go to the authorities with the right to protest about it,” she said.

“We want to be part of the city and not be segregated and forced to return to the camps,” Durán said.

Zakia Soman and Dr Noorjehan Safia Niaz are determined to ensure Muslim women take their rightful place in society.

By Mariya Salim
NEW DELHI, India, Dec 10 2021 (IPS)

Discriminated in society and concerned about the discrimination of women in their homes, the two women who co-founded the Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) started the movement to further Muslim women’s leadership and help them reclaim their rights.

In an exclusive interview with IPS, Dr Noorjehan Safia Niaz and Zakia Soman say they started the BMMA or the Indian Muslim Women’s Movement to address communal tensions and prejudice within India and the inherent patriarchal prejudices faced within their homes and beyond.

Both Niaz and Soman say the ‘communal’ tensions, parlance for prejudice and violence against the Muslim minority in India, shaped their understandings of gender and identity. This led them to stand firmly on principles of gender justice and reforms – leading to the formation of BMMA. Since 2007 this movement has grown to more than 50,000 women.

Soman says she became conscious of her Muslim identity while interacting with women survivors of the Gujarat riots in 2002 in Ahmedabad. During these riots, many Muslim women were singled out and subjected to sexual violence.

“Gujarat riots were preceded by 9/11 (the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York in 2001) and the so-called war on terror. I felt a huge burden of my identity. My Muslim name invoked curiosity wherever I went,” Soman says.

She realised she was not alone, and many Muslim women shared her feelings.

“On the one hand, there was communalism and communal violence coupled with state neglect. On the other hand, we faced discrimination at home and within the family, wrongly in the name of religion.”

Soman says she was in an “abusive relationship”, and she and other Muslim women “decided to join hands and take charge of our situation.”

BMMA members in a leadership training program. The organisation has grown to more than 50 000 women and they have achieved significant successes.

The BMMA was born out of these sentiments to change a communal, patriarchal world.

For Niaz, the journey began in 1992, just after Babri Masjid, a mosque in Ayodhya, was demolished. What followed was communal violence across the country. Eighteen Muslims were murdered in Ayodhya following the demolition and houses and shops torched. Across the country, including in Mumbai, around 2,000 people were killed.

This communal violence and insecurity were the reasons Muslim women emerged as community leaders, she said.

“By this time, there was also a deeper understanding of all issues, especially of the core basic need for education, livelihood, health, security,” Niaz says. “Additionally, we also had seen from close quarters the legal discrimination that Muslim women faced because of lack of a codified Muslim family law.”

This became the core demand of the  BMMA because “we knew that if we don’t demand it, nobody else will. ‘Our Struggle, Our Leadership’ became our slogan. Muslim women must lead based on the values of the Holy Quran and the Indian Constitution. (She must) demand her rights which emanate from her religion and her identity as a citizen of this country,” Niaz says in an exclusive interview with IPS.

“Zakia approached me with the idea of a national platform, and that is how it all began. We worked for two years on the vision, mission, objectives, values and principles that would govern the movement, with other women leaders,” she said.

After speaking to other Muslim women leaders in various states and after two years of deliberations, in 2007, BMMA was formally launched.

Since its formation, BMMA has been leading change from within on various fronts.

Soman and Niaz recall the various victories and associate these with the relentless struggle of the members who continued to fight for their rights despite little to no resources and often felt the community’s ire for “daring to demand their rights’.

One such victory was the Haji Ali judgement which reversed a prohibition of women’s entry into the sanctum sanctorum of the religious shrine, Dargah/Shrine. BMMA had filed the Public Interest Litigation or PIL to stop the discriminatory practice. It was a victory endorsed by the Supreme Court of India and paved the way for women from other communities to demand the end of discrimination at religious places.

Another significant achievement was the filing of a PIL against triple divorce, polygamy and halala. The BMMA was a significant group that had the practice of triple divorce, a method where Muslim men could divorce their wives by merely pronouncing the term ‘Talaaq’ or divorce, thrice to them, abolished in 2019.

Forming Darul-Uloom-e-Niswaan and training 20 women to become qazis or religious scholars is a first in India and considered by both as a major achievement.

“Some of the women whom we have trained have even performed Nikahs (religious weddings), challenging patriarchal norms,” adds Niaz.

Despite the resource crunch and criticism, the leaders in the states and members continue to work with the most marginalised women, addressing issues ranging from applying scholarship schemes for their children and training them in livelihood skills to empowering them with information on Constitutional and Quranic rights

Most of the leaders run centres from their homes, many in poor ghettos to reach those in most need.

The movement and its leaders have been criticised for addressing women’s rights when Islamophobia and communal violence are on the rise.

Change and reform are slow and require continuous efforts and support from the larger community and progressive forces, according to Soman.

“It is not easy to take on the patriarchal religious establishment that has ruled over the community mindsets for decades. Neither is it easy to fight a discriminatory communal order in the face of state apathy,” says Soman.

“I do not care about the opinions of vested interests. I am satisfied when I look at how dozens of the riot survivor women have turned out to be fiery activists in the last two decades,” Soman says. BMMA has created leaders across the country.

“These women were voiceless in the cacophony of conservative men of religion. (The leaders) have now shown the whole world that gender justice is intrinsic to Islam. They have changed the perception about their religion in the eyes of ordinary Indians,” she says.

The path chosen was never easy. They were asked why the State should be involved in matters of shariah. They were insulted and called stooges of the right-right-wing Hindutva. This criticism came from both religious groups and the so-called secular-liberal feminists

With the additional challenge of COVID-19, Niaz is confident that the path chosen is the right one.

“Amid the heightened Islamophobia, lynchings and open calls for annihilating the community by the state and state-backed Hindutva forces, how can BMMA continue to speak for family law reforms in favour of Muslim women,” they were asked

Niaz’s answer is emphatic.

“Because if we don’t continue to speak and highlight the issue, nobody else will.”

The two women and the leaders from the Indian states, bound by shared objectives of empowering and uplifting Muslim women, find strength in each other. Niaz reflects on this relationship.

“We bond with each other within BMMA. I would like to believe we are soul-mates born with a common divinely sanctioned purpose. Just being with each other, talking to each other gives us strength.”

 

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• The Struggle to End Female Genital Mutilation: A Dark Secret No More

By Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, Dec 10 2021 (IPS)

I suspect that most of you have at least heard of female genital mutilation, or FGM. It’s a practice that happens in numerous African countries, in which girls’ genitalia are removed or cut, for cultural or religious reasons. FGM has been condemned globally for years and campaigners continue working to end it.

But what might surprise you is that FGM happens in Asia too. And not just in one or two countries. According to today’s guest, Keshia Mahmood from Malaysia-based non-profit ARROW, the practice occurs in as many as 13 countries in both Southeast Asia and South Asia. That shocked me. I think I’m pretty well informed, and I lived in Malaysia for four years, but I didn’t know about FGM happening there. Interestingly, the United Nations joint programme to eliminate FGM works in 17 countries, but none of them are in Asia.

Keshia explains why FGM in Asia — which she refers to as FGM/C, or female genital mutilation or cutting — has been so under-exposed, but how that started changing after its elimination was included in one of the Sustainable Development Goals, whose deadline is 2030. Still, ending it will be a huge challenge, in part because practising communities believe that it is a much less invasive version of FGM than those performed in African countries. Another impediment is the growing medicalization of the practice, which lends it an air of legitimacy.

Keshia also discusses a new initiative co-led by ARROW called the Asia Network to end FGM/C, and some of the avenues it is pursuing to support partners working on the ground to end the practice. They have their work cut out for them: every year more than 1 million girls in Asia are cut in the name of culture and religion.

 

 

A worker checks the fans at the cryptocurrency farming operation, Bitfarms, in Quebec, Canada (image: Alamy)

By Joe Coroneo-Seaman
LONDON, Dec 10 2021 (IPS)

On 14 April this year, the price of a single Bitcoin reached a then all-time-high of around US$64,870. Just over a month later, the price of the world’s most popular digital currency had tumbled to $34,259.

A significant driver behind this sudden drop was the news that China had begun a sweeping crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry, driven by concerns about financial risk and excessive energy consumption. Bitcoin “mining” – the process by which transactions are verified and new coins are created – is highly energy intensive, leading to criticism of the currency’s oversized carbon footprint.

Before the clampdown, China accounted for two-thirds of Bitcoin mining worldwide. In the months since, mining companies have been quick to move their operations overseas. Recent data suggests that energy consumed by Bitcoin has increased in the US, Canada and Kazakhstan, and with it, pressure to address the currency’s soaring electricity appetite.

 

Power-hungry Bitcoin mining

Bitcoin is a decentralised digital currency, meaning that each time money is sent or received, the transaction is kept on a public record, rather than with a bank. But in the absence of a trusted authority to verify each transaction, the responsibility falls to participants in the Bitcoin network known as “miners”.

Herein lies Bitcoin’s energy problem. The more computing power you can muster, the more often you will be first to solve the puzzle and earn the Bitcoin. And the machines used to mine Bitcoin – application-specific integrated units (ASICs) – consume a lot of energy, to say the least.

To verify transactions, miners connect computers to the cryptocurrency network and use them to solve incredibly complex, randomly generated mathematical puzzles. But not just any computer will do the job: Bitcoin mining requires running multiple specialised computers almost 24/7 in order to achieve the computing power needed to find the solution.

Whoever solves the puzzle first is allowed to add a “block” of transactions to the global ledger, and is rewarded with a small amount of newly minted Bitcoin.

Herein lies Bitcoin’s energy problem. The more computing power you can muster, the more often you will be first to solve the puzzle and earn the Bitcoin. And the machines used to mine Bitcoin – application-specific integrated units (ASICs) – consume a lot of energy, to say the least.

In one year, the entire Bitcoin network consumes around 120 terawatt hours (TWh) of energy, or more than the whole of the Netherlands, according to estimates by Cambridge University’s Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI). If Bitcoin were a country, it would rank 32nd in the world by annual electricity consumption.

“That’s the price we pay to secure transactions,” says Anton Dek, cryptoasset and blockchain lead at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, and one of the creators of the index. Bitcoin’s energy usage isn’t an accidental by-product, he explains. Mining Bitcoin is purposefully designed to be costly – both in terms of electricity and money – to prevent would-be hackers from taking over the network.

So far, it seems to have worked. “We haven’t seen any double spending or any attacks on the network, partially because this attack would be too expensive. So it kind of makes sense, though that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be of concern,” says Dek.

 

Bitcoin mining: A climate disaster?

Bitcoin’s energy footprint has skyrocketed in recent years. In 2017, economics blog Digiconomist estimated that the network of specialised mining computers used 29 TWh annually, equal to 0.13% of total global electricity consumption. This had grown to around 0.65% by May this year, according to CBECI data.ƒcbeci

Unchecked, Bitcoin mining operations in China alone were set to generate 130.5 million metric tons of CO2 by 2024, around the same as the total annual emissions of the Czech Republic, according to a 2021 study in the journal Nature.

 

Crackdown

Since President Xi Jinping pledged last year that China would aim to be carbon neutral by 2060, the government’s stance on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining has hardened.

The first sign came in March this year, when Inner Mongolia announced it would phase out cryptocurrency mining entirely after the province failed to meet its 2020 target for reducing energy consumption.

Then in May, China’s Vice Premier Liu He declared at a State Council meeting that the government intended to “crackdown on Bitcoin mining and trading”.

Regional governments were quick to act, revoking licences of companies involved in cryptocurrency mining, cutting off power to mining facilities and in some cases giving firms just seven days to shut down their operations. By the end of June, one industry expert estimated that 90% of China’s Bitcoin mining centres – more than half of the global total at the time – had gone offline. In the same month, Bitcoin’s total electricity footprint was cut in half, according to CBECI data.

 

Mass exodus

“The crackdown in China has resulted in a mass exodus of miners,” explains Peter Wall, CEO of North American cryptocurrency mining firm Argo Blockchain. “Displaced Chinese miners are searching the globe for appropriate hosting sites for their machines.”

Countries with access to cheap electricity like Canada, Russia, Kazakhstan and, especially, the United States are now seeing a surge in interest from Chinese miners looking to partner with local firms. Latin American nations with similarly affordable electricity rates and a weak institutional framework for the industry are also emerging as destinations for the industry.

Venezuela and Paraguay are among those looking to attract miners unable to operate in China and Argentina could become a global bitcoin mining destination, with Canada-based Bitfarms announcing it had begun construction of a 210 MW Bitcoin mining facility in Argentina, the largest in the country. The mine will source its power directly from the Maranzana gas power station.

In September, El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele made headlines when he adopted the currency as legal tender, despite experts voicing concerns that the attendant increase in demand for electricity would make the country more dependent on energy imports than it already is.

So how will this “great mining migration”, as it is described in cryptocurrency circles, shape Bitcoin’s carbon footprint?

“We hope that the long-term impact of this migration is the re-installation of machines in jurisdictions in which mining operations can be powered by renewable energy,” says Wall.

The short-term reality may not be so rosy. In July, Beijing-based crypto-mining giant Bitmain agreed to move a batch of its mining machines to a 180 megawatt (MW) facility in Kazakhstan whose electricity is supplied by a local coal power plant. Given that just 1% of Kazakhstan’s energy mix is renewables, this may not be a one-off. In Canada, oil and gas company Black Rock Petroleum has agreed to host up to 1 million Bitcoin-mining machines relocated from China, with the first 200,000 units sourcing power directly from a natural gas well.

The new global hub of Bitcoin mining, however, is expected to be the US state of Texas. The state’s governor, Greg Abbott, is actively courting the cryptocurrency industry, tweeting in June that “Texas is open for crypto business.” Shenzhen-based BIT Mining plans to invest $26 million in a 57 MW facility in the state.

Texas offers “huge possibilities for mining to utilise renewable sources” says Wall. He points out that in the west of the state, wind turbines power 90% of the grid. Overall, however, the Texas energy grid is made up of just over one-fifth renewable energy, and has proven fragile in extreme weather conditions.

 

Greening Bitcoin

CBECI data now shows Bitcoin’s electricity consumption is climbing once again. As the network becomes more distributed across the globe, what options remain for tackling the currency’s carbon footprint?

One solution may be to rethink how Bitcoin transactions are verified. The current method is called “Proof of Work” because participants must do the work of mining to verify transactions.

The most commonly proposed alternative is “Proof of Stake”. This removes computing power from the equation. Instead of competing against each other, participants who have first made a deposit in Bitcoin are selected at random to verify transactions. The larger the deposit, the greater the chance of being selected and earning the reward.

Several smaller cryptocurrencies already use this method. Ethereum, one of Bitcoin’s main competitors, is expected to make the switch later this year, but some in the industry remain sceptical.

“We have no plans to shift away from Proof of Work,” says Wall. Miners will inevitably migrate to the cheapest electricity available on the grid and increasingly that is not coal, oil or gas plants, he argues. “We are at a point where renewable power is the same price or lower than power generated by fossil fuels.”

“It may be too late for existing digital currencies like Bitcoin to change their methods of confirming transactions,” agrees Truby, of Qatar University. The best option is to “focus on mitigating mining devices’ energy consumption by improving the devices and providing them with renewable energy,” he says.

Norway and Iceland, with their plentiful supply of geothermal, hydroelectric and wind power, have been using renewable energy to power cryptocurrency mining for years. El Salvador also claimed that its Bitcoin mining operations would be powered by “100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy” from a volcano.

Against a backdrop of growing pressure on energy-intensive industries of all kinds to address their contribution to global carbon emissions, Wall is frank about the need for cryptocurrency to adapt: “Proving that crypto can be sustainable is pivotal to its success. The future of energy is green and renewable, so the future of crypto must reflect that.”

This article was originally published by ChinaDialogue

Biofortified crops address the world’s ‘hidden hunger. Credit: CGIAR, formerly the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research.

By Jan Low
WASHINGTON DC, Dec 10 2021 (IPS)

When one in five pre-school children is stunted due to chronic undernutrition, it is clear that global diets urgently need to improve and diversify to include more nutrient-rich fruits, vegetables and animal-source foods.

Yet with healthy diets out of reach for three billion people worldwide, resulting in insufficient vitamin and mineral intakes and bouts of illness, this shift cannot happen overnight. Instead, improving diets and nutrition must be seen as a holistic process.

Breeding staple foods, which are already accessible and affordable, with additional vitamins and micronutrients – known as “biofortification” – is a fundamental way to support better nutrition for all, but especially those who struggle to achieve a more diverse and nutritious diet.

Many factors contribute to inadequate diets around the world, from cost to climate change, all of which require a comprehensive and systemic transformation with innovation at every stage of the food chain, from incentives and new technologies for producers to education and improved livelihoods for consumers.

But to combat hunger, people simply need sufficient calories, and through biofortification, calories that are easiest to come by can also be source of key vitamins and minerals essential for good growth and strong immune systems.

In drought-stricken southern Madagascar, for example, which is experiencing the first climate-induced famine, a new effort is under way to deploy biofortified varieties of sweetpotato, which are enriched with vitamin A and fast maturing.

Since sweetpotato is a hardy crop that is already widely eaten, the biofortified version is a way to deliver crucial nutrition quickly in a form that Madagascans recognize and are likely to adopt.

A project backed by World Food Programme (WFP) and partners in Nyaruguru district in southern Rwanda is empowering women with agricultural and business skills. Cedit: WFP/JohnPaul Sesonga

The orange-fleshed sweetpotato has already helped make inroads in improving nutrition across Africa with more than six million households benefitting from the crop in 15 countries over the past 10 years. Just one small root, or 125g, of orange-fleshed sweetpotato meets the daily vitamin A needs of a young child.

Meanwhile, the biofortification of rice is expected to provide up to 30 per cent of vitamin A requirements in the Philippines, where it has recently been approved for cultivation and where more than 15 per cent of children under six are vitamin A deficient because fresh fruit and vegetables are often unaffordable.

Biofortification also offers a way to preserve and enhance the nutritional value of the most consumed cereals, including rice, wheat, millet, and sorghum.

One under-reported consequence of rising levels of CO2 emissions is the degradation of nutritional quality of staple foods, with some studies indicating that future CO2 concentrations could reduce levels of protein, iron and zinc in cereals by up to 10 per cent.

Biofortifying grains with zinc can ensure good growth and support more than 200 enzyme systems, which is especially important given that nutrient declines in crops could result in an additional 175 million people being zinc deficient by mid to late century.

Zinc-enhanced wheat not only offers up to 40 per cent higher concentrations of zinc, but is also high yielding and disease resistant, meaning it not only safeguards the crop’s nutritional value against climate change, but it safeguards its productivity as well.

Finally, iron enriched crops such as beans, millets, and potato can help support the proper cognitive development of children as well as their physical development, allowing them the best possible chance to reach their full potential and a prosperous, healthy future.

Almost one-fifth of the population in Rwanda are now eating iron-enhanced beans, which provide 80 per cent of the iron needs of young children and non-pregnant women.

By getting nutrition right in the early years, millions of children will be able to escape the limitations of inadequate diets.

Good nutrition through a diet rich with fruits, vegetables and animal-source foods is the foundation of a healthy, productive society. Yet poor households in low-income countries spend up to 70 per cent of their income on food, and having calories to prevent hunger is their first priority.

Using biofortified staples is a no-brainer way to get major micronutrients into the diet at low cost, a vital pathway towards better long-term, sustainable nutrition and health.

Jan Low is Principal Scientist, CGIAR’s International Potato Center, and 2016 World Food Prize Laureate.

 

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Gladys Acosta, a Peruvian lawyer and sociologist who is the chair of the CEDAW Committee, considered the fundamental charter of women's rights in the world, stands on a stretch of the Costa Verde boardwalk in Lima after her interview with IPS. The Convention celebrated its 40th anniversary in September 2021. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Dec 10 2021 (IPS)

“The level of injustice in the world cannot go on like this…I am not pessimistic about the future,” said Gladys Acosta, president of the CEDAW Committee, in an interview with IPS in the Peruvian capital.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) celebrated its 40th anniversary in September of this year as the binding legal tool for women’s rights for all 189 states parties.

Acosta, a Peruvian feminist lawyer and sociologist, chairs the Committee of 23 independent experts with four-year mandates to monitor the implementation of the Convention.

After an intense period of sessions, Acosta is in Lima and will return in 2022 to her duties in Geneva, where the Committee operates, to finish her term. Until then, she will enjoy her view of the Pacific Ocean and the soothing murmur of the waves for a few weeks.

After stating that she is not pessimistic about the future, she adds that, on the contrary, “I am very critical and pessimistic about what is happening today.”

“We are reaching the limit of an era that is in its death throes because the level of injustice in the world cannot go on like this,” said the expert, who has previously held senior regional positions in United Nations agencies.

Among the issues addressed in her conversation with IPS, Acosta mentioned the importance of analyzing gender-based violence as part of the systemic discrimination against women, and said the pandemic is marking a before and after not only in relation to this problem, but also a change of era where the question of caring for people becomes much more of a priority.

IPS: Do you consider that the covid-19 pandemic marks a before and after in relation to discrimination against women, a step backwards in terms of achievements? Is it possible to make this interpretation?

GLADYS ACOSTA: I think that this will be the case for everything, not just for women, discrimination or human rights; I dare to think that it will be seen as a change of era. We are coming from an era with the greatest concentration of wealth in the history of the world, with a population in growing poverty, which is reaching unsustainable levels.

It is very important to develop this awareness, because we have been sold the idea that having money or buying goods is the non plus ultra of everything. We are in a post-neoliberal world and nobody knows for sure how far we have come, but we are at a breaking point because this economy based on the exploitation of territories, of people, of knowledge is a constant illicit appropriation of everything, and today with the pandemic it has come to light that human beings need care.

This has become a central focus and has been put on the agenda; the pandemic has clearly demonstrated that the presence of this virus has been exacerbated in the absence of care.

(Acosta vehemently recalled that many years ago feminist economics proposed that the economic system could not live without women’s work, especially unpaid work. And she called for an analysis of the current situation with fresh eyes and making better connections in order to, for example, “stop looking at the growing problem of violence against women as something dislocated, a loose wheel”.)

When we in the Committee took a position regarding Nov. 25 (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women), we saw that three forms of violence have been exacerbated: femicides, domestic violence and violence online, which has become widespread.

So, yes, there are some new things, but it is very clear that we have not resolved the basic forms of discrimination that are at the basis of society, which include social, political, economic, racial and cultural violence – and in places where there are castes: caste-based violence. There is a discriminatory base that is at its peak and I think it is a serious moment of very unequal and very unjust power relations that I view with great concern.

IPS: At the moment you describe, there is resistance put up by different population groups – young people, feminists, indigenous people – but it is difficult to bring them together in a concerted effort, as seen in Peru and other Latin American countries. Is this a great challenge?

GA: We are living in a highly conflictive time, it is not that we are being swept away by a right wing with no resistance. No. We are in a time of open conflict between political sectors, economic sectors, social sectors and there is a very clear resistance. And I am thinking on a global level, more globally as part of the Committee, not only with regard to what is happening in Peru. The environmental crises are very serious and covid has to do with that.

This is not an epidemic that can be seen as detached from human aggression against nature. Environmental crises accelerated in the twentieth century due to the model of industrialization, production and economic development. Now they are trying to reverse the situation, but global agreements are not easy and do not bear the desired fruits quickly because there are enormous economic interests involved.

Interests that are prepared to kill the planet! They say: “What does it matter, in thirty years we won’t be here.” Just like that, with an atrocious pragmatism. And within these environmental conflicts, we women bear the brunt.

Secondly, there is the social conflict that takes place within and outside these circumstances. And there is an atmosphere of conflict, I would say violent, armed, in different parts of the world and it has to do with this madness of arms production, because this is a war-economic model that produces and sells arms left and right.

And the big countries, even those that seem very democratic and progressive – and I say this because I see it in the Committee – are big producers of arms and sell them to countries that have conflicts and this has repercussions on women’s lives.

(Acosta explained that the Committee would address this problem with arms-producing nations and expects the resistance movement to grow. “The problem I find is that this perversity in the economy is unfortunately linked to a dominance in mass media and with a top-level technology. And I think that these elements, which are more macro, have to be included in the analysis of women’s issues”.)

Gladys Acosta sits on Lima’s malecon or boardwalk after an intense year as chair of the CEDAW Committee, made up of 23 independent experts who monitor compliance with the Convention against all forms of discrimination against women. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

IPS: Ecofeminists warn of the risk to the sustainability of life, indigenous peoples warn of the threat to nature as long as there are weak or complicit States. How does the Committee contribute to this reflection?

GA: First of all, States still exist. Although the economic power of transnational corporations is enormous, this is the sphere in which we move, we discuss with the States Parties, of which there are 189 in this Convention, in an interesting dynamic of pressure to respect international human rights standards, among which international standards for the protection of women’s rights are very important.

Women’s rights have an enormous connection with the sustainability of life, but not from an essentialist point of view. You brought up the issue of indigenous peoples and it seems to me that in many ways we are discussing a general recommendation on the rights of indigenous women and girls. There is an ancestral indigenous wisdom, especially that of women, which must be protected in a more effective sense.

There is an enormous knowledge about nature, food, seeds and seed reproduction; knowledge about how nature is suffering – they know the symptoms of this suffering and how we could do things differently. It is knowledge that has been handed down through the generations and that fortunately still exists and must be protected.

IPS: In another interview with IPS, in 2009, when you were regional representative of the predecessor organization of UN Women, you said that policies should not see women as a vulnerable sector; do you think there has been progress against that vision described as paternalistic?

GA: I would say there are both. It seems to me that the mobilization today in the world in favor of women’s rights is much more powerful, broader and more political. I think that in different countries you find everything, equality policies that have been very positive and that have opened the way for greater respect of women’s rights and greater access to education, university and work.

I would even say that the issue of parity has advanced despite the fact that something that worries me is also appearing, which is that some very retrograde sectors are taking advantage of the issue and want to make it their own when in reality the only thing they are looking for is more power for themselves. Women end up being nothing more than decorative elements within their political stance.

(Acosta highlighted in this context the emergence of younger movements, of young people who demand more power, and who have more vision about which direction to take than adults and older people, and said she had confidence in these movements, while clarifying that she meant the ones that take a “critical stance”.)

That is why I am not pessimistic about the future. I am very critical and pessimistic about what is happening today, but I do not think that this will remain the same. That is why I say that we are reaching the limit of an era that is in its death throes because the level of injustice in the world cannot go on like this.

This is going to explode and hopefully the damage to people will be minimal. But I know that the level of conflict will not remain unchanged.

Excerpt:

Mariela Jara interviews GLADYS ACOSTA, Chair of the CEDAW Committee. This article is part of IPS coverage of the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence that began on Nov. 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and end on Dec. 10, Human Rights Day.